Successful Site Architecture

Dean ChewSEO Engineer

Ayima Search Marketing

This presentation will focus on the technical aspects of site architecture including…

• Aligning important on page factors• URL Canonicalization

• Google Webmaster Tools• Duplicate content issues

• Correct URL structure and URL Rewritting• How to create search friendly URLs on the Linux platform with .htaccess

•Sub domains, folders, microsites and the considerations for using each• HTTP Status codes and using them correctly

• 404 error pages• 301 Redirects and passing link juice

What we’ll cover

Search Engines rank your site using many different factors…

• Age of site• Domain Name• Name of urls• Originality of content• Structure and Usability• Relevance to searched-for term• Technical soundness• Link popularity (backlinks)• Authority and relevance of linking sites

Ranking Factors

If you are to make any on page changes to your sites make sure that you align your pages with your target keywords.

Use Google keyword tool to generate your keywords e.g “Homeschool Tuition fees” The tool can be found at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Aligning on page factors

Title:

URL:

H1:

Page titles need to be uniquely tailored for each individual page and should be seen as an opportunity to summarise the page. • A general rule is to place the company name at the end and the more highly searched terms closer to the beginning of the title. • Do not squeeze too many keywords into the title tag as it can look like spamming. Also keep the length from 6 to 10 words. • Titles should look natural and also be optimised for CTRs. Can be used like PPC creative to increase click through.

Example for a web hosting company:Bad: Web Hosting R Us: Business Hosting - Semi Dedicated Hosting - Powerful and High Availability for Busy/eCommerce Websites Using CPanel/WHM 99.99% Uptime SLA Good: Small and large business web hosting service – Web Hosting R Us

 

Aligning on page factors – Page Titles

URLs (domains, folders and files) should always be clear, descriptive and contain the target keywords (only once).  • Do not stuff keywords into the urls and make them look spammy • Try to keep urls as short as possible and as close to the root of the site as possible

• Query strings can also cause problems e.g http://www.mysite.com?page=products&color=red&price=9.99 

Example for web hosting company:Bad: http://www.mysite.com/website-hosting.shtml?host_semi-dedicated-hostingGood: http://www.mysite.com/business-web-hosting.html

 

Aligning on page factors – URL’s

Header tags such as <h1> and <h2> are used to structure a web page in a similar fashion to creating documents in Microsoft Word.  Target keywords should be used within these tags wherever it appears natural to do so. Header tags hold a lot of SEO value but should be used sparingly and not abused. <h1> - Should only be used once at the top for the headline of the page<h2> - Can be used numerous times for sub-headings on the page<h3> - Can also be for numerous sub-headings, but only below an <h2> 

 

Aligning on page factors – Headers

There is a difference between http://mysite.com and http://www.mysite.com

Webmasters also may link to one URL or the other so you want to ensure you pass all authority of the incoming links into your domain.

Example:Bad: http://mysite.comBad: http://mysite.com/index.htmlBad: http://www.mysite.com/index.html Good: http://www.mysite.com

Code Example:RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mysite.com$ RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.mysite.com/$1 [QSA,L,R=301]

You can also tell Google which URL to use at http://webmaster.google.com

 

URL Canonicalization

Duplicate Content

If you are using an ecommerce platform or similar, you may have urls such as

http://www.mysite.com?page=products&id=1&color=red&price=9.99

They are problematic because

• The URL does not include target keywords• The URL is hard to read for the end user• Webmasters my find it difficult to link to you• There are a number of query strings, try to limit to 3• Numbers or random strings which change each time can look like session

id’s and may be filtered out by engines

 

URL Rewriting

Old: http://www.mysite.com/addidas/products.php?category=mens&inner-category=runningshoes&product_name=superstarsXYZ&id=1

Rewritten: http://www.mysite.com/addidas/superstarsXYZ/1

Example code:RewriteRule ^addidas/runningshoes/superstarsXYZ/1/?$ addidas/products.php?category=mens&inner-category=shoes&product_name=superstarsXYZ&id=1 [L]

Or dynamically…

Example code:RewriteRule ^addidas/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ addidas/products.php?category=mens&inner-category=$1&product_name=$2&id=$3 [L]

IIS Module: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1691

URL Rewriting – Code Examples

Root Domains - the domain name you need to buy/register with a TLD extension• Examples of root domains

• *.mysite.com• *.wikipedia.org

Subdomains - the "third level" domain name; these are free to create under any root domain you own/control• Examples of subdomains

• www.mysite.com • myblog.blogspot.com• en.wikipedia.org

Subfolders - the folders behind a domain address• Examples of subfolders

• www.mysite.com/blog/• chewie.co.uk/about/• en.wikipedia.org/SEO/

Sub Domains Vs Folders

When a browser or search engine crawls your site it will return a http status code in the header. This tells the browser/search engine what type of page it is..

Common codes:• 200 ok - Standard response for successful HTTP requests• 301 Moved Permanently - This and all future requests should be directed to the given URIL• 302 - Moved Temporarily – This request should be directed to another URL temporarily• 404 - Not Found - The requested resource could not be found but may be available again in the future.• 503 – Service Unavailable – If your server is having code issues you can server this header and Google wont index the page

You should ensure that you only use one 404 page and that it actually returns a 404 header. You can use the following code to ensure your 404 page works correctly

Example Code:ErrorDocument 404 /custom404page.htm

You can use tools such as http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp to check the header codes on a particular URL.

HTTP Status Codes

They don’t have to be boring!

404 pages

Code Example:RewriteRule ^general/boot-ca?$ /general/boot-camp-assistant-crashes-during-partition [L,R=301]

301 Redirects

Case study of www.globalstudentnework.com

Site increased traffic after changing• Page titles• URL’s• Header tags• Fixing 302 redirects to 301’s

• No links where built the traffic increase is based purely off on page changes

Case Study

Thank You

Dean ChewSEO Engineer

Ayima Search Marketing

http://www.ayima.com

Personal Blog: http://www.chewie.co.uk

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/deanchew

Image sources used: Elliance.com