When it comes to choosing your site URL you’d better make the right choice because it definitely has a significant effect not only one your website SEO but also on user-friendliness.

To make things clear right off the bat let me state that you should use STATIC URLS.

Static URLs have clear advantages over dynamic URLs but before I point out the differences let me make it clear that Google can crawl both URLs even though they also do recommend the use of static URLs.

So why are static URLs preferable over dynamic URLs? Because according to a post in SEOmoz static URLS have the following advantages:

• Higher click-through rates in the SERPs, emails, web pages, etc.
• Higher keyword prominence and relevancy
• Easier to copy, paste and share on or offline
• Easy to remember and thus, usable in branding and offline media
• Creates an accurate expectation from users of what they’re about to see on the page
• Can be made to contain good anchor text to help the page rank higher when linked-to directly in URL format
• All 4 of the major search engines (and plenty of minor engines) generally handle static URLs more easily than dynamic ones, particularly if there are multiple parameters

Note though that according to Google if you already use a dynamic URL it is best to leave it alone since re-writing it just to make it look like a static URL can lead to more problems. As their search quality team said, “If you transform your dynamic URL to make it look static you should be aware that we might not be able to interpret the information correctly in all cases. If you want to serve a static equivalent of your site, you might want to consider transforming the underlying content by serving a replacement which is truly static…However, if you’re using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good.”

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Last month I wrote a post on pagerank sculpting (See “Pagerank Sculpting: Not Worth Your Time”) after reading Matt Cutts’ explanation on why there are other things you should focus on. One of the most common ways pagerank sculpting is done is to use the “no follow” tag. Because of this, the use of “no follow” tags is less important. Furthermore, in a recent post by Eric Enge of Search Engine Watch he explained why the use of “no follow” tags can, not only be of no help, but actually even harmful in terms of link juice.

In Eric Enge’s post, “Should You Still Use Nofollow?”, he explained that the link juice that is supposed to go to links with “no follow” tags are not split between the remaining links with out the tag but are discarded. This means that it lessens the overall value that a page passes. Due to this, and the fact that pagerank sculpting is a waste of time, it seems that the “no follow” tag’s days are over for SEOs. However, note that you should still remember to use the “no follow” tag for paid links (See my post “Google Says Use No Follow for Paid Posts or Else…”). It pays to preserve the value of your links but not at the expense of being tagged by Google as a violator of their paid links guidelines.

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“Double U what?” was the most common answer I got when I posed this question to some friends who are also casual bloggers. I then realized that not everyone pays attention to W3C anymore – especially those who are relatively new to the Internet game. I was once again reminded of W3C when I read Ann Smarty’s post on the topic.

So what is W3C exactly? She explains it as:

The World Wide Web Consortium working to develop open standards for the World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or W3) so that Web documents can be consistently displayed across all platforms.

Founded in 1994 the consortium is still the main web standard against which all websites are evaluated. The most well known W3C tool is Markup Validation Service that checks the markup validity of Web documents in HTML, XHTML, SMIL, MathML, etc. Other valuable tools include RSS/Atom feed validator or CSS validator, Mobile content checker, and broken link checker.

So if it is a standard, does it mean that it is most updated? Unfortunately, technology seems to be developing too fast for W3C and this may not be the case. Ann Smarty further writes:

• many of the standards are too old and are based on the last century realia (e.g. according to W3C any page limit is twenty kilobytes which is not necessary to conform to with today’s high-speed Internet connections);
• the market is moving many times faster than the W3C committee (e.g. mobile Internet which evolves too fast for both W3C and Google to compile).

So should you check your web site if it is W3C compliant? I suggest that since it is still considered the main standard, you might as well. However, do not be content with merely being W3C compliant. Do take a look at other trends and see how your web site can be improved.

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Just recently, one of my blogger friends asked me again about how to remove the no-follow attribute in her blog comments. She read about the “do follow” movement and wanted to be part of that. That got me to reading up on new developments with regard to no follow and do follow…

I found an interesting article at Econsultancy, which promotes the use of the no follow attribute as part of your SEO best practices. Naturally, being a do follow enthusiast, I had to read the whole article in an effort to understand the rationale behind the statement. This is what I found out:

While the concept of ‘PageRank leak’ – the idea that you can potentially ‘dilute’ your PageRank by linking out too much – has been widely debated for years, there’s no doubt that good linking practices are important to maintaining PageRank.

Linking to third party websites that Google thinks are ’spammy’ can harm you. As Google itself advises, “avoid links to web spammers or ‘bad neighborhoods’ on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”

This is where using the ‘nofollow’ attribute on outbound links can be a valuable SEO tool.

One of my personal blogs has had no PR for months now – after having a halfway decent PR of 3. Perhaps I am leaking out PageRank because of not using the no follow attribute. I should take a look into this. Maybe you should, too.

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Admit it or not, there are some aspects in SEO that can be classified as traditional.  These are the practices that have been established from the beginning and are considered to be the building blocks of all SEO activities. These are ideas which have withstood the test of time and that everyone takes for granted to be the “ultimate truth.”

Take the use of keywords for one.  We all know that in order to optimize our web sites, we need to choose those keywords which most people are using when they search for information.  For a certain niche, there is a group of words or phrases that are most commonly employed by people who want to find out more about that niche.  And these are the words that we want to use most in our web sites in order to rank well in the search engine results.

Now how about if we diverge a bit from that traditional way of thinking?  Let us say that we try to use other keywords which may not be as popular?  Non-traditional indeed but it just might give good results in the long run.  Come to think of it, this concept is not that new.  We have heard of the argument which pits short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords against each other so many times.  In essence, using the not so popular keywords mean using long-tail keywords, right?

Experts say that SEO is going to enjoy a modest boost in 2009.  Perhaps it is time to be part of that success and try other less common methods – such as using less popular keywords.  What do you think?

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As many other people have noticed, sometimes, SEO efforts can tend to become too focused on search engines. Though obviously, the search engines should be a prime consideration, we cannot totally discount the importance of the end users – human users. This is what user experience is all about.

In SEO parlance, user experience is also dubbed as UE or UX. To be honest, I only came across this term recently, thanks to Shari Thurow at Search Engine Land. In a post published yesterday, she shares her thoughts on UX:

Search engine optimization is all about the user experience, because the idea behind SEO is to get users to their desired information and destination(s) as quickly and easily as possible by using the users’ language (keywords). Searchers type in keywords at a commercial web search engine. Searchers’ expectations are validated in search results pages and, hopefully, after they click on links within those search results…a perfect, seamless user experience.

An important point that we should put under consideration is the difference between UX and the perceived UX, the former being what human users actually experience and the latter being what SEO experts may think their users want to experience. Though sometimes, these two factors jive, more often than not, there is a disparity. That is why it is important that when working on SEO, you have to bear in mind UX – the real deal. Do not be limited by your own perceptions, actually open your mind to reality and adjust your strategies accordingly.

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Before I continue with the other blunders that Tad Chef shared in his article titled “7 Weirdest SEO Mistakes Big Companies Make Abroad,” let me acknowledge some readers who left comments in the previous post. gMoney asked for the link to the original article – sorry for my oversight, it has been fixed. Data Entry Service said something about not doing business overseas and it struck me that even if we do not engage in business overseas, perhaps we could gain some insights from the article – we should NOT make these blunders. So here goes some more of these blunders – here’s to NOT making them!

Big foreign clients spend ridiculously limited budgets on SEO, sometimes I work for small ecommerce sites as well as for big brands at the same time and the big brands just spend twice the amount as the tiny online shops with niche audiences.

I think that this can happen – it is probably happening – in domestic soil as well. If the people behind big brands do not know much about SEO, they would probably just leave the responsibility to someone, never mind the cost. This is never a smart move, especially when there are always ways by which you can cut on the cost without sacrificing quality, right?

They insist on outdated SEO practices like directory submission and meta keywords tags. Instead of using methods that work quickly or over time such clients just want me to write meta keyword tags and submit to directories.

I have no problems with directory submission and keywords. My beef arises when they become the sole activities for SEO. That, in my mind, is a surefire way of failing in the long run.

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If you are based in the United States and you focus all your SEO efforts locally, you might not be able to relate to this post. For those of you who are expanding or thinking of expanding to other countries, however, you might find this information useful. I was reading up on SEO trends when I ran across an article titled “7 Weirdest SEO Mistakes Big Companies Make Abroad.” Let us take a look at some of them.

They have more lawyers than marketers it seems as I always get the NDAs first and am not allowed to even tell my mother who I work for. Imagine a web designer etc. not able to brag about the brands he works for. They (both) lose so much publicity!

This is really weird although I have encountered a lot of situations like these. On the one hand, there is some rationale in NDAs. However, on the other hand, wouldn’t it be better for everyone involved to at least acknowledge each other’s existence? Can anyone shed light on this matter?

I am not allowed to use the simplest and most effective SEO techniques. The corporate structure is sometimes so monolithic, the CI so rigid, the technical limitations so many that basically everything a SEO does usually is not possible or permitted. How do you build links when no press releases, no blog posts, no link baits, no nothing is allowed?

I guess that business practices in other countries limit SEO efforts and if this item is to be believed, they limit SEO effectiveness a LOT. If you cannot create online press releases, you can create blogs, and so on, how are you supposed to be as active as you can in the SEO perspective?

(to be continued)

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I think I have been watching too much of the Mythbusters lately – I find myself on a mythbusting spree! Then again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, is it? I think that today, I shall go on a web site optimization mythbusting mission. Come take the journey with me!

I am but a regular person. Web site optimization is too complicated for me.
NOT! Web site optimization CAN be hard. However, there are some basic elements to it that any person (with the most rudimentary understanding of technology) can use to optimize his web site. Do not let this way of thinking hinder you from working wonders on your web site. (Perhaps in the future we can look at these basic steps for web site optimization.)

It is too late in the game. I cannot possibly catch up with the web site optimization game.
Again, NOT. More and more people are only starting on their web site optimization journey. Do not belittle yourself so much that you think you cannot do it. There is no such thing as too late. You only have to learn the basics (here is that term again!) and then move on from there.

I just need to submit my site to search engines. Then I have my work done.
NOPE. Submitting to search engines is one step. It does not mean that you cannot do other things to optimize your web site, though. The truth is, merely submitting your site to search engines cannot guarantee any results.

Want to know more? Wait for the next post.

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I love blogs.  To be honest, though, I used to NOT care about blogs at all.  Yet when I started reading some really good blogs and then I started maintaining my own blog, I realized just how fun they can be.  But have you heard of some web site owners who have turned to blogging merely for SEO purposes?

The truth is that blogging has been touted to help one’s SEO program get started.  I have heard people saying that if you want to be a success in SEO, then your main web site should have a blog.  Now I am not denying it – blogs do play a role in SEO.

The basic premise behind a blog is that you provide fresh, relevant, and timely content on a regular basis.  Your ultimate goal is to help improve your search engine rankings.  What I have noticed, though, is that some blogs do not do this – they do not present well-written, relevant, and timely content.  Indeed, sometimes blogs made SOLELY for SEO purposes are not interesting.

What am I trying to say in this post?  It is really simple.  Jump into the blogging bandwagon NOT ONLY because you are thinking of your SEO strategy.  When you start blogging, think about your readers, how you can entice them to read, keep reading, and stick with your blog.

In the next post, let us look at some types of blogs that are examples of blogging solely for SEO purposes.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Greene

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