Tuesday, August 23. 2011
companies dropping info email address to prevent spam and why you shouldnt
Blocking customers by blocking info email address
Okay lets get serious here. This should be a no brainer but appearantly more and more companies / their web gurus seem to think one can get rid of spam by dropping the info email address.
Its obvious why, everyone expects it to be there and so do spammers but by getting rid of some spam one blocks out customers that might be realy interested in your products. I had my mail to an info address returned as not deliverable twice today and had to call the company to ask for a working address.
If spam is that big an issue you could afford to loose many customers, be my guest and drop it
For those that think, get a spam blocker or even better go search for a better host that has a good spam blocker on your mail server Be safe and sound out there
Sunday, August 21. 2011
Vision2form Web design going social
We did have some social engagement on the net, Hyves, LinkedIn (account removed due to privacy issues crated bij LinkedIn), Facebook (for as well the Mirrors as the Web design part), Stumbleupon (not much lately) and off course we Twitter
So to combine all and let the social part kick in, i now got the time to place them social buttons in the blog beneath each article. So have fun and click as you like
So to combine all and let the social part kick in, i now got the time to place them social buttons in the blog beneath each article. So have fun and click as you like
Monday, August 8. 2011
Ranking and language - Short SEO news
While writing the article about Changing Hosting and duplicate content - or not? and the mentioned ranking drop by the client i remembered i wanted to write a posting about what happend. Due to time ... well, it took a while but here it is.
About a year ago i got a call from a dutch guy that as he said represented an american businessman that would like to have his website optimized. Nothing strange about that neither the fact that his business was in the adult industry. I get a lot of calls / emails from companies in that section that want to get some advice or want their site build by me. Normaly i reject, i have nothing with that business and i know its a sharktank were every technique is used to rank, no matter what they have to do to get up there.
As it wasn't anything explicit, i got freehand to design and optimize the site and they accepted the fact that i couldnt guarantee top positions because it takes more than just the web site. Further more i didnt have to worry about backlinks, they got that covered and so i agreed.
After a short investigation on the top sites and gettin a bit acquainted with the branche i made a report and discussed it with my client. The site was going to be hosted in the Netherlands, it was a Dutch tld and it was ment for businessmen and tourists. So the main language, in my oppinion, should be dutch and the second one english. As all good SEO know, this is important as Google is narrowing the results more and more to the users location. Even a laptop with english as main language connected to the net through a dutch IP will get more country specific results. By using both languages the dutch as well as the english speaking would be able to use the site.
The web site went live and within a few weeks it did get good positions, some in the top 10 (i still am puzzeled about that) and all was going well as i thought. My work was done, uhm not quite.
My client called me after a few weeks and told me they didnt get any calls or emails and he was convinced the main language of the site and the main pages should be in english. Changing language as i know, will make the site drop and so i tried to convince him not to do that. The answer to the low conversion rates should be found in the backlinks, content, pictures etc. not in changing the main language.
We agreed to let it be in Dutch and i put up a large button that pointed to the english version to direct the english visitors to the propper pages. Appearantly that didnt change the conversion and a week (to short to know) later i got another call, as you can guess it should be changed into english. So i changed it and put it live. I did tell my client one last time that his site would drop and pulled the plug on this project. As i am curious and do check what happens to sites after i have made changes (the only way to learn what realy works out there in the searchengine jungle) i followed the rankings for a couple of weeks and saw them drop as expected.
Having pages up in the rankings in foreign languages can be done, but that takes a lot of work and more
Get your site into gear and do it the right way
About a year ago i got a call from a dutch guy that as he said represented an american businessman that would like to have his website optimized. Nothing strange about that neither the fact that his business was in the adult industry. I get a lot of calls / emails from companies in that section that want to get some advice or want their site build by me. Normaly i reject, i have nothing with that business and i know its a sharktank were every technique is used to rank, no matter what they have to do to get up there.
As it wasn't anything explicit, i got freehand to design and optimize the site and they accepted the fact that i couldnt guarantee top positions because it takes more than just the web site. Further more i didnt have to worry about backlinks, they got that covered and so i agreed.
After a short investigation on the top sites and gettin a bit acquainted with the branche i made a report and discussed it with my client. The site was going to be hosted in the Netherlands, it was a Dutch tld and it was ment for businessmen and tourists. So the main language, in my oppinion, should be dutch and the second one english. As all good SEO know, this is important as Google is narrowing the results more and more to the users location. Even a laptop with english as main language connected to the net through a dutch IP will get more country specific results. By using both languages the dutch as well as the english speaking would be able to use the site.
The web site went live and within a few weeks it did get good positions, some in the top 10 (i still am puzzeled about that) and all was going well as i thought. My work was done, uhm not quite.
My client called me after a few weeks and told me they didnt get any calls or emails and he was convinced the main language of the site and the main pages should be in english. Changing language as i know, will make the site drop and so i tried to convince him not to do that. The answer to the low conversion rates should be found in the backlinks, content, pictures etc. not in changing the main language.
We agreed to let it be in Dutch and i put up a large button that pointed to the english version to direct the english visitors to the propper pages. Appearantly that didnt change the conversion and a week (to short to know) later i got another call, as you can guess it should be changed into english. So i changed it and put it live. I did tell my client one last time that his site would drop and pulled the plug on this project. As i am curious and do check what happens to sites after i have made changes (the only way to learn what realy works out there in the searchengine jungle) i followed the rankings for a couple of weeks and saw them drop as expected.
Having pages up in the rankings in foreign languages can be done, but that takes a lot of work and more
5 Basics in hosting and geolocation
- Use a country specific .tld or use the global .com
- Phisically host the site in that country
- Make sure you have the language tags in place in the head section
- Use the propper language in content, descriptions and everywhere else
- Get backlinks from pages in that country in the propper language
Get your site into gear and do it the right way
Sunday, August 7. 2011
Changing hosting and bad SEO info - Short SEO news
It sometimes happens (as we have experienced ourselves recently - but thats another story) that one has to change hoster.
Bad services, server breakdown, no respons on mails, requests ignored etc. all legitimate reasons to change ones hoster. The story is bad enough as it happend so lets focus on what turned out to be a bummer for my client.
We moved the web site to the other account, notified the old hoster that it was moved and i thought that would be it. Almost a year later my client calls and tells me he got a bill from his old hoster for hosting his web site. Strange but okay can happen, what was more weird was the following fact (thats the way he told it to me - its a fact) that because there were two versions of his site, he got a penalty for 'duplicate content'. Even a translation as he said could trigger this.
As i asked him who had told him that nonsens he stated:A very respectable SEO company (well uhm year right). They also told him that they had prove, which i asked for but never got, and it was a common mistake that people make, not deleting the web site on the old hoster that is.
Facts:
Even those facts could not convince him and he was sure his rankings dropped because of duplicate content.
I told him he'd better listen to some people that realy know what they were talking about than to those that dont know the facts. Even if the web site was still there, the DNS had changed and the bot in no way could reach the old content as it was on a shared hosting. The conversation turned from worse to bad and i told him i would ask some people who would be the ones to know and let him know their answer.
Well, i mailed Matt and his answer:
I mailed my client and thats it for me. If you dont want to listen to good advice, and trust every one that has an opinion on SEO issues, well than neither i and no one else will be able to help you
Things to be learned from this:
Ps. I called the old hoster and he teared up the bill
Bad services, server breakdown, no respons on mails, requests ignored etc. all legitimate reasons to change ones hoster. The story is bad enough as it happend so lets focus on what turned out to be a bummer for my client.
We moved the web site to the other account, notified the old hoster that it was moved and i thought that would be it. Almost a year later my client calls and tells me he got a bill from his old hoster for hosting his web site. Strange but okay can happen, what was more weird was the following fact (thats the way he told it to me - its a fact) that because there were two versions of his site, he got a penalty for 'duplicate content'. Even a translation as he said could trigger this.
As i asked him who had told him that nonsens he stated:
Facts:
- Client was hosted on a shared IP
- Hosting had been transfered
- DNS changed a year ago
- I have my site in 3 different languages and i know some one who has 10 translations, neither one of them were, or will ever be counted as duplicate
Even those facts could not convince him and he was sure his rankings dropped because of duplicate content.
I told him he'd better listen to some people that realy know what they were talking about than to those that dont know the facts. Even if the web site was still there, the DNS had changed and the bot in no way could reach the old content as it was on a shared hosting. The conversation turned from worse to bad and i told him i would ask some people who would be the ones to know and let him know their answer.
Well, i mailed Matt and his answer:
People can link to content on an IP address, for example. It's rare, but does happen. Now for the IP address to be shared--that would be truly weird.
Matt
I mailed my client and thats it for me. If you dont want to listen to good advice, and trust every one that has an opinion on SEO issues, well than neither i and no one else will be able to help you
Things to be learned from this:
- SEO can be confusing, you might not know who tells the truth and i know there is a lot of bs. spread by those that simply blabber on things they think they heard or think will work as a 100% fact. So stay safe and dont just believe all you hear. Check and double check
- Make sure you have the old site deleted, especially if you have had your own IP and transfer to another hoster and a new IP.
Ps. I called the old hoster and he teared up the bill
