WordPress Categories

WordPress Categories are generally considered of minor use in organising content but not valued at all in terms of SEO. I’m not sure that has to be the case and would value any feedback on the following hypothesis.

A WordPress Category is an archive of existing posts but organised by topic rather than date. It is a regurgitation of old content and so most sources recommend it should be marked as “noindex” in order to avoid duplicate content issues.

I use the Yoast SEO plugin on all my WP sites and find it indispensable. So when I was getting to really know it I noticed it provides some of its page tweaking tools for Categories and Tags although it looks like it’s stuck in an old version because it lacks some of the refinements you get for pages and posts in more recent versions.

Anyway it set my mind to wondering if anything could be done to wring a bit of SEO value from Categories. So take a look at the following screen – click on it for full size.

wordpress categories

The Yoast settings are what you’d expect and no more; a title and a description and the option to nofollow the page. But what I stumbled upon that I found interesting was the description field in the standard WP settings. What I learned was:

  1. It doesn’t show up in most themes.
  2. In a theme that uses it, it appears at the top of the category page.
  3. There doesn’t seem to be any restriction (that matters) in the length of this description.

So this gave me an idea of how to make WordPress Categories more useful by removing the duplicate content issue.

By writing a reasonably lengthy description containing unique content and showing only post summaries in the body of the page I reckoned I could dilute the old content enough to avoid duplication. I also reasoned that by replacing an old post with a new on a regular basis my category page would also display freshness.

Here’s an example from a Community Arts website I look after in the town where I live. Notice the text below the category title, followed by summaries of the posts in this category. I think that represents unique content and the page is getting rankings and traffic.

wp category : teatime chats

So give it a try. It also works for tags I think, there’s no real difference except I tend to have many fewer categories than tags and less posts per tag. If you learn anything please share via a comment. Equally if you think it’s a daft idea please say so.

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Personalised Email Addresses

personalised email addressesPersonalised email addresses are not just for Christmas, they’re for life! Change your job, change your ISP but always keep the same email address!

No longer need you be known as fredsmith194b@virgin.net or sexybeast@yahoo.co.uk or coolboy@hotmail.com. Or worse still lock yourself into AOL or some other inferior and expensive service through being stuck with jim_smith1951@aol.com or musthaveseenmecoming@btinternet.com.

Search for your personalised email address and domain name at NetSecrets and register it online. It costs as little as £4.99 + VAT per annum and is set up instantly.

FREE OFFER – within 7 days of registering your name call Becky or Aimee on 01527 571730 and they will give you a completely free email and hosting package for 3 months and help you get it set up and working. Just quote Discount Code 1951. At the end of the free trial you can continue the service for just £25 per year (+vat) or simply take the name elsewhere at no further cost.

When searching for your name you might have to be a bit creative when searching. As you can guess johnsmith.co.uk was taken years ago so you might need to look for johnwsmith.co.uk or johnsmith-swindon.co.uk or even johnandmarysmith.co.uk. If you can’t find what you want give us a call and we’ll help find something appropriate. However if your name is Thelonius J BucketThumper you shouldn’t have a problem getting precisely what you want!

And daft as it might sound a personalised email & domain name makes a very nice Christmas or birthday present – at least for someone who likes that sort of thing!

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PlanetStream Blog Restructuring

planetstream blogThe PlanetStream blog was set up some years ago when we were much less clear on what a blog should do, and especially how it should be structured.

Well, we are planning to release a brand new, super-duper PlanetStream website early in 2013 and so I’m just doing some (slightly overdue) work on various aspects of the site in readiness for the new launch.

A major part of this involves improving the structure of the PlanetStream Blog to make it more seo-friendly and easier to navigate. Which is fine except that we have about 300 old files, getting on for 100 tags and and several categories, mostly in a format I don’t like. The challenge is to change all this whilst not losing too much (or any) search engine rank or visibility.

One bad decison we made at the off was to store our blogs in date-based folders. So a typical blog post file name would be:

http://www.planetstream.net/blog/2010/07/postname/

Apart from not being friendly to the eye the main problem with this is that it puts the content 4 levels down in the file structure and that, I believe, costs a lot of Google PageRank and visibility. The answer is simple, change it to:

http://www.planetstream.net/blog/postname.html

This is dead easy with just a handful of files, but with 300-odd it’s one fiendishly boring task setting up all the 301 redirects, without making a mistake in the highly sensitive .htaccess file.

So I spidered the site with XML Sitemap Generator to create a sitemap in text format. Opened that in Excel, removed any files that weren’t date-based blog posts, copied the list into a second column and with a bit of hand editing, used the CONCATENATE function to create a 301 redirect for each file.

Also took the opportunity to clear out some irrelevant old posts (Happy Christmas 2008  anyone?) and after a couple of hours work I’d got a lovely clean set of redirects ready to upload and the PlanetStream Blog is better than ever.

Went into Permalinks settings, set up default Permalink of /postname.html and wonderful WordPress did the rest. Uploaded the .htaccess file and tested a fair few pages and all seems OK. Will now keep a very close eye on Google Webmaster Tools to spot and correct anything that has gone wrong.

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Choosing Domain Names

domain names from nominetChoosing domain names might seem straightforward but it isn’t in every case. Your choice of domain name can have major repercussions on your business, positively if you get it right, but negatively if you get it wrong.

A friend of mine asked me for some advice yesterday on what domain names to register for a new business idea he has. I don’t want to give away his idea before it gets started so let’s disguise things a bit.

His idea is similar to someone interested in vintage tractors (but of course it’s not tractors in this case) and his business idea is to sell memorabilia to fellow enthusiasts online. He’s thinking of old prints, mugs, T-shirts and such like. Since he knows the market and is only looking for a bit of pocket money from it he stands a good chance of meeting his aims.

So let’s assume the brand name he wants to use is “Green Tractors” but he finds immediately that all variants of the domain name greentractor.co.uk or .com, are long gone. So what domain names can he go for?

My first suggestion was to add a small word to find an available name – mygreentractor, littlegreentractor, greentractorshop, etc. The other consideration was what type of domain to go for.

His main market will be the UK so a .co.uk version will be very preferable. On the other hand he thinks he might get a bit of business from Europe where these items are popular so he should also get the .com version of the name he chooses.

Google recognises that .co.uk domain names are focused on the UK market and so must assume that brings some advantage in UK search results and almost certainly a disadvantage is non-UK results. To start with the main site will be the .co.uk and we will simply forward the .com domain to the .co.uk. In the future however we retain the possibility of building a separate .com site targetting non-UK business.

Before arriving at the final choice we used a few general principles that make up a kind of checklist:

  • Make sure the body of the name is not someone else’s trademark, or you be forced to take the site down.
  • Choose as short and simple a name as possible, i.e. mygreentractor NOT my-little-green-tractor-wot-i-keep-in-the-back-garden.
  • Get both .com and .co.uk versions, if both not available choose another name.
  • Consider .info, .biz, .eu domain versions too but ONLY if you have com and .co.uk already (NB: in a few instances this might not be best advice).
  • Consider hyphenated names – green-tractor – but try to have no more than a single hyphen as Google is believed to treat “multi-hyphen” domain names as suspicious.

As this project moves along I’ll share more info. How we chose a hosting package; what platform we went for; what ecommerce system we used and what payemnt provider.

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Has Someone Stolen your Domain Name?

Imagine you have had your domain name for 5 years. You have handed out thousands of business cards containing your email and website address, your letterheads, invoices, compliments slips have the same data, you even have your domain painted on your vans or trucks. Email marketing is your main way of finding prospects and you receive most of your enquiries by emial or from forms on your website. You have even started to make sales and receive payments on the net.

Then one day you come into work and you’ve no email and your website is down. Bit of a nuisance! Then you discover that your domain name now belongs to someone else and the impact begins to sink in. But surely this can’t happen? It can’t be that hard to sort out can it? There must be laws stopping this?

At best you will be without mail and website for several weeks, you will probably have to pay out thousands of pounds either in legal fees or in “ransom” money and at worst you will never get the name back and have to start building from scratch, all over again.

So how does this happen and what do you do about it? Here are a couple of non-extreme examples of what can happen.

A musician I know had a website selling his cd’s, announcing tour dates, offering merchandise to his fan base, all doing him a lot of good. One day he noticed his email had stopped and his website had been replaced by a single page announcing “This domain is for sale – click here for more detail”. To cut a long story short his domain registration had expired without his realising it, literally a few milli-seconds after it had expired an automated monitoring system had notified the “scam” artists who look for such events, they re-registered it in their name and offered it back to him for $5000. Despite huge reluctance he paid it, he really had no choice.

Had it been a .co.uk domain he could probably have got it back within 3 weeks using Nominet’s dispute system but as it was a .com he had no real recourse. He had gone for the cheapest domain registration system available so the standard of communication was poor so he wasn’t adequately warned that his domain was close to expiry. By the way by going the cheap route here he saved himself maybe £2 a year!

Another company I know had a shock when their hosting provider went bust and the service ceased leaving them without email or website. No big problem, we could get them on our servers in a few hours. Except that the person who, several years back, had registered their domain name for them had in fact registered it in his own name so only he could authorise moving the site from the dead servers to our live ones. They had lost track of him so could not make contact. As their name was a .co.uk we were able to get the name back and all is now fine. But they were without service for about 3 weeks while it was resolved. Had there name been a .com it is unlikely they would ever have got it back.

The first thing to do is to see if you have a problem, before it hits you. Go to a reputable domain registrar’s site, I’d recommend ours – http://www.kwikreg.co.uk

Use the search box to search for your domain. It will tell you it is already registered and there is a link to “Owner Info”. Click on that and make sure it is your details that appear. Also check when the domain expires and make a note of that date so you don’t get caught out like the musician mentioned above.

If there is any problem deal with it now! Don’t leave it until it really matters, like when you want to move servers or maybe even sell the business.

If you need help or advice just ask. It won’t cost you anything. Just post a comment or email me: tony@netsecrets.co.uk

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Domain Names Are Important

We all know you can get a domain name for anything from about £5 per annum upwards but despite this many businesses and individuals limp along with wholly inadequate names.

I see quite large companies who have a website of www.theirdomain.com but insist on using theirdomain@aol.com as their corporate email address. Or senior consultants with jbloggs22@btinternet.com on their business cards. Are they mad? Or just ignorant?

Firstly they are locking themselves into what may be a low quality service just because they can’t risk losing their AOL or BT email address. Secondly what does this do for their image?

Anyway rant over for now. If you want to learn more about domain names there are a series of articles on the NetSecrets website as follows:

There should be something of interest there and if you want any advice on what to register and how to make best use of it then call us on 01527 571730 or email helpdesk@netsecrets.co.uk.

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Google Preferences On Domain Types

I noticed an important change in Google’s pronouncements on domain name types. I was working in Google Sitemaps and looked at the “Settings” section for one of my .co.uk domains.

Now, there has been the opportunity for some time to set a “geographical target” for a domain in this section which works a bit like the option in Adwords to limit the ads to a specified location or a n-mile radius of a location but I don’t often make use of this in sitemaps because, quite honestly, I don’t think it’s very accurate. Although I am based in the middle of Herefordshire Google sees me as being in Telford because that’s where my ISP’s point of presence is. But I digress …

For this domain I spotted the message “Your site’s domain is currently associated with the target: United Kingdom” which surprised me as it’s a business that primarily sells in UK but is also relevant to overseas prospects. So I clicked on a link which I thought would allow me to remove this preference. I wasn’t able to and instead found the following statement:

“If your site targets users in a particular location, you can provide us with information that will help determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results, and also improve our search results for geographic queries. You can only use this feature for sites with a neutral top-level domain, such as .com or .org. Country-specific domains, such as .ie or .fr, are already associated with a country or region.

Your site’s domain is currently associated with the target: United Kingdom”

This tells me 2 interesting things. Firstly if you want to achieve any visibility outside of the UK you have to get a .com, .org, or .net domain. Secondly if you want to sell in the UK you might be better using a .co.uk domain or at least setting a preference in Google Sitemaps for the UK market.

So what to do if you want to achieve both? Certainly you can’t just have the same website with two domains. That will invoke “duplicate content” issues and at best make one of the two sites ineffective. You need to be cleverer than that, probably with having two distinctly separate sites as the optimal solution.

If you have one type of the domain and could do with the other contact our Support Team, Aimee, Becky or Dan, on 01527 571730 to check what’s available or just go to our domain name checker.

Equally if you’d like some ideas on how best to combine the two types of name send me a message and I’ll advise as best I can.

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New PlanetStream Website Launched

One of NetSecrets’ major brands is PlanetStream which provides a range of services linked to the hosting and distribution of online video and audio content. This service covers on demand streaming, live streaming plus hosting of internet TV and radio channels.

One thing you’ll notice on the new site is the use of a “video presenter“. This comprises a brief spoken introduction to the site or section of the site as appropriate. If done badly this kind of thing can be irritating but done well it can impart a lot of information very quickly. Let us know what you think of it please.

The main services offered by PlanetStream are:

The most exciting recent development has been the addition of the H.264 Codec to our range of encoding and streaming options. Known as the “HD Codec” H.264 gives remarkable results on both live and archived video. Its clarity and quality are better than anything else around and uses a bitrate that is compatible with the majority of ADSL connections, even the cheaper end of the market.

PlanetStream offer a free trial of the hosting service so call them on 01386 792972 or email helpdesk@planetstream.net for more information or to give it a try.

All industry forecasts are definite that commercial websites without video content will be left behind in the next year or so. Video is no longer a bit of fun or a “nice to have” for your website. It’s becoming an essential!

The big boys, with their unlimited funds, are already doing it and so the smaller operator has to follow suit. Problem is if you use a low quality free service like YouTube you are shouting to the world that you are small time and cheapskate. Speak to PlanetStream to discover how you can match the quality and image of major players without busting the bank!

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Major Update to FastSMS Website

I know it's been a bit quiet here for a few weeks but that is down to a massive effort going onto improving our FASTSMS website and associated marketing campaigns as part of our initiative to grow our business despite the recession.

FASTSMS offers a wide range of internet based SMS text messaging services based on a network of servers in London Docklands that plumbs directly into the UK mobile network. That's what sends and receives the messages anyway.

At the user end there is a web-based sender (think Hotmail); a desktop based sender (think Outlook) and a few other options such as Email2SMS and a Developer API. The API (Applications Programme Interface) enables software to be linked into FASTSMS seamlessly for sending and receiving text messages.

The challenge has been to make the site work for both novices to SMS, who want to learn before committing to buy, and for SMS-savvy people who just want to see the basics and place an order. We've tried to create a natural progression for visitors that lets them branch out in different directions according to their needs. So the first page gives basic info and has easy access to the ordering page but also leads to a more detailed listing of features and benefits for those that want it, then a detailed explanation of pricing and finally screen shots of our interface.

The main sections are:

Solutions, for example, is then broken down to make it easy to select between the various options such as:

And each solution is then broken down into an overview, a price list, a features list, a screenshot gallery and an ordering page.

Sure hope it work! Will keep you posted.

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Seltek Warehouse – Major New Online Store

We are delighted to launch Seltek Warehouse, a major new online store offering over 1700 UK manufactured products to companies in the manufacturing and distribution sectors. All products include images, full specifications and price details to make it easy for visitors to find what they want at an affordable price.

The products on offer include:

Orders can be placed online or over the phone. Payment can be made by cheque, bank transfer or credit/debit card. Most items are on rapid delivery and help and advice obtained by calling 01386 793274 or emailing info@seltekwarehouse.co.uk.

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