77 Web Solutions

Google recently announced that it now allows people to create and manage a profile page. This feature displays a link with minimal contact information and photo (if you add a photo to your profile) at the bottom of the Google search results page when someone “Googles” your name.

For example, if you search for “Scott Quarterman” you will now see a link to my profile page come up at the bottom of the search results page.

Why is this important you ask?

Well, it’s another opportunity to get a link back to your website, and it allows you post any personal information about yourself that you would like others to see. It also includes links back to other profiles you may have on social networking sites such as Linked In, Facebook and more.

How do you  get your own Google Profile?

It’s very simple and quick. Simply, go to the Google Profile page and follow the instructions. Within a few minutes you’ll have your own Google Profile to show the world when they “Google” your name.

There is also a minor attempt by Google to make this feature “social” by allowing you to share certain parts of your profile with people you know. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would want this feature.

I see this as one way to control what personal information the world sees about you when you are “Googled”.

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The answer is still, NO!

However, Google recently announced that it now crawls and indexes Flash-based websites. Previous to this new feature if you had a self-contained Flash website you probably were not getting much traffic. Now you may see your site start to come up in search results.

The problem with using self-contained Flash websites is that there is still a BIG unknown about how to optimize your Flash (SWF) files for the search engines. And, Flash does not provide the proper tools to manage this new feature.

Best Practices

• Use Flash Only Were Needed – This means use it as an animation tool, even though it can do much more. Continue to us HTML for your content and navigation. At least until there are more guidelines around optimizing self-contained Flash sites.
• Do Not Use Javascript to Load Your Flash File – If you are using Flash as animation in your website and it does have some text in it that you want indexed, do not use Javascript to load the file. Straight from Google, “Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. If your webpage uses JavaScript to load a Flash file, we may not be able to discover and index the contents of that file.”
• Do Not Load Another File Into Your Flash File – Google does not follow files that are attached from your Flash File. From Google, “We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads another file – such as an HTML file, an XML file, or another SWF file – we may index the contents of those files, but we won’t consider that content to be part of the content in your Flash files.”
• Use sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) – This open-source project lets you replace text elements with Flash files. However, it keeps the text elements of the file in the HTML source.

Flash is an extremely powerful tool for animation and much, much more. For your website, just keep it simple and use Flash for animation only.

If you have questions about Flash or how to use it in your website please contact us.

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Recently, Google announced that it was extending the sitelink functionality for listings beyond the first listing.

What is a Google sitelink you ask?

A sitelink is a list of page links that may or may not be showing up below your Google search results listing. If your website is number one on a search result page, chances are your listing has sitelinks showing. Below is an example of the sitelinks for the NASA.gov page.

What’s new with Google sitelinks?

Now Google will be displaying a row of three or four page links below your website description row and above the website URL row. These links will go to the top pages in your site that Google deems appropriate.

What does this mean for my website?

If your website shows up in the top three positions of a Google search results page you will now get additional exposure to deeper pages within your site. This was not available previously unless your listing was in the top spot.

What if you don’t want a page showing in your sitelinks?

Simply sign in to Google Webmaster Tools (if you don’t have a Google Webmaster Tools account create one immediately) and go to the Links/Sitelinks page and click the “[Block]” link next to your listing. Find out more about managing your Google sitelinks.

If you need help getting your website showing up in Google search results please contact us.

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Having properly formatted URLs (filenames for pages on your website) will help search engines such as Google crawl your site more efficiently and will help visitors understand the content within the site.

What are some good practices to creating search friendly URLs?

1) Use keywords in your URL. Be sure the keywords are relative to the specific page and that users are searching for these keywords.

For example (shoe store example): http://www.yourdomainname.com/shoes.htm

NOT: http://www.yourdomainname.com/ae98653lksdfuoir908.htm

If your website dynamically creates URLs for your pages (some content management systems do this), be sure to rewrite these URLs as they are posted to your web server.

2) Use multiple keywords words. Be as descriptive as you can when creating the URL, without having too many words. Of course make sure it’s relative to the content of the page.

For example: http://www.yourdomainname.com/green-shoes.htm

3) Separate words with a dash. Search engines like Google prefer that you use a dash (“-”) between the words in your URL and not an underscore (“_”). And do not put words together.

For example: http://www.yourdomainname.com/green-shoes.htm

NOT: http://www.yourdomainname.com/green_shoes.htm

NOT: http://www.yourdomainname.com/greenshoes.htm

4) Create a simple directory structure. This means create a relatively flat folder structure in your website. Don’t make the search crawlers keep going deeper and deeper into your directory structure.

For example: http://www.yourdomainname.com/walking-shoes/green-shoes.htm

NOT: http://www.yourdomainname.com/shoes/walking/small/green/withlaces/green-shoes.htm

Following these simple steps when planning and creating your website URLs will help the search engines crawl your site easier and will help your users better understand what content the page contains.

If you need help creating search engine friendly URLs please contact us.

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Yesterday (April 7, 2009), 77 Web Solutions launched the latest edition of the Fortress Roofing website. You can view the site at www.fortress-roofing.com.

Fortress Roofing came to us looking for a completely new website including a contemporary look and feel, new content, and better search engine rankings.

Their previous site was built using a templated design, had minimal content, and was not ranking very well with the search engines.

We updated their site with a new design and fresh content including; a Healthy Roof Guide to help consumers understand all the details of roofing materials and terminology, a Portfolio to see roofing installations provided by Fortress Roofing, and customer Testimonials from satisfied customers.

If you need a new website design or search engine optimization services please contact us.

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