design & marketing blog

Have you just deployed a new Website that includes a significantly different site structure, file names, and/or file extensions?  There are a few basic “housekeeping” tasks that should be performed to insure that indexed pages (in the case of search engines) and bookmarked pages (in the case of users) will not be returned with “Page not found” errors.

301 Redirect

The digital Change of Address Notification

301 redirects are  the best method for telling the world that a previous web page name and/or extension have been replaced by a different page. Think of a 301 redirect like digital equivalent of forwarding your USPS mail when moving to a new physical address.  It instantly forwards an old URL to the newer replacement URL. With a 301 redirect, the server is configured so that when a search engine or user follows a link they have previously bookmarked, the server recognizes that URL as an old page and automatically redirects the user to the new page.  For example we have the following URL set to redirect using this method: http://risingline.com/creative_samples.htm (notice the URL of the actual page you end up on is completely different).

301 Redirets are also useful for creating more descriptive and memorable URLs in marketing campaigns. For example, we found ourselves directing people to a particular page on our Website quite often during phone conversations.  Rather than having to relay the page name with its dash and “.php” extension we just created a shorter 301 redirect; so now we just have to say or type “http://risingline.com/why” instead of  “http://risingline.com/web-sites.php“. This URL is much more effective and memorable for verbal and written communication yet allows us to retain our file name “web-sites” which is more desirable for SEO purposes.

LinkedIn announced a few days ago the launch of  Company Pages. While it might seem that LinkedIn is a bit late to the business page concept (in comparison to Facebook) their Company Pages offer superior a superior technical solution with better usability. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn’s user base of 80 million are potentially higher prospects if your company markets primarily B2B. Even if you market to consumers, you definitely should establish a LinkedIn Company page to increase your overall social media footprint and take advantage of the other unique social networking benefits LinkedIn offers such as job posting and recruitment.

No matter what, if you’re a business owner you need to set up your company page immediately. If you need help, let us know.

One thing I appreciate is the superior usability as compared to Facebook. Facebook business pages are a mess from an administrative standpoint . . . it never seems completely clear if one is posting to a personal profile or a business page and when on a business page navigation links are intertwined with your personal profile. LinkedIn’s page administration seems to be thought out much better.  Also, in comparison with Facebook, there is opportunity to present much more information about your company and its services including graphic banner ads and keywords about your services which are beneficial from an SEO standpoint.

I’ve just started on our page but feel free to check out the Risingline Linked In Company Page and tell me your thoughts.

The article referenced below provides another compelling reason why you should keep all the Web browsers in your company upgraded to the most recent version of Web browser.

BBC: Two million US PCs recruited to botnets
The US leads the world in numbers of Windows PCs that are part of botnets, reveals a report. More than 2.2 million US PCs were found to be part of botnets, networks of hijacked home computers, in the first six months of 2010, it said. [read full article]

See also these prior blog posts of ours:

• Amazon Ends Support for Internet Explorer 6
• Why you should stop using IE6

I want to direct your attention to a recent blog post by Glenn Murray, IMHO one of the most accomplished and credible SEO copywriters out there. Glenn underscores vital SEO points we’re always preaching, namely:

• You’ve got to post legitimate content that’s of real value to your target market.
• You must be authentic and honest.
• Your real audiences are your clients and prospects. Write content for them, not Google.
• Success takes time.
• Trying to cheat the system is ultimately detrimental to the success of your business.

I do recommend you read his whole post, but if you choose not to, here is my favorite quote:

“[SEO is] about working hard to write something truly link-worthy, then letting people know about it, so they can choose to link to it if they like it. It’s not about making Google believe your site is more popular than it actually is, it’s about actually making your site more popular.”

For the millionth time . . . there are no tricks or shortcuts to SEO and there are many scammers out there trying to convince you otherwise. As Forest Gump might say, “If it seems to be good to be true, you must of heard it from an SEO company.”