Ways to Resolve Duplicate Content
With the continuing updates of Google, duplicate
content has become a huge topic in the search engine optimization (SEO) world. Duplicate content is a content that appears on the Internet in more than one place (that
is, in more than one URL), giving the search engines the difficulty to decide
which version is more relevant to a particular search query. Such dilemma will
lead the search engines to rarely show multiple duplicate pieces of content and,
are forced to choose which version is most likely to be the original.
For site owners, duplicate content is an issue that
needs to be fixed in order to improve or maintain site rankings and to prevent
traffic losses as well. Here are some ways to resolve duplicate content:
301 redirect.
For this, you have to check the page authority and see if one page has a higher
PA than the other. There are various tools for that such as the Open Site
Explorer. After that, set up a 301 redirect from the duplicate page to the
original page. In this way, they no longer compete with one another in the
search results.
rel=canonical.
A rel=canonical tag is a special tag that is inserted into the header of HTML
that helps communicate to search engine bots the relationship of that piece of
content to others on your site. It tells the search engine bots which pieces of
content are original or primary ones and which are duplicates. So the bot will
pass over the duplicates and only index and give link credit to the primary
piece. Add this tag to the HTML head of
a web page to tell search engines that it should be treated as a copy of the
"canon," or original, page:
noindex,
follow. Basically, this code snip tells the search engine robots to not
record the information on the page (the noindex part) but to still relate this
page to the pages that link out of it (the follow part). You can add the
"noindex, follow" to the meta robots tag to tell search engines not
to include the duplicate pages in their indexes, but to crawl their links. Here's
what it should look like:
2015 SEO Best Practices According to Rand Fishkin
Watch the vid below to gain insights about 2015 SEO best practices according to Rand Fishkin. Rand co-authored and co-founded the Art of SEO, Inbound.org, and Moz. With his expertise on content, search, and social on the web, he is arguably one of the leading voices in the SEO industry today.
Step-by-step Tutorial on How to Make a Website with Wordpress
The video below will show you a step-by-step tutorial on how to make a website with Wordpress. The steps are outlined as follows:
1. Setting Up Hosting
2. Setting Up a Domain Name
3. Installing WordPress on your new hosting account
4. Logging into WordPress and changing your Password
5. Changing your WordPress theme
6. Adding a Page with Text and an Image
7. Adding a Page with a Video (embedded from YouTube)
8. Adding a Page with a Contact Form on it so visitors can send you a message (which will be sent as an email)
9. Changing the Home Page (including CTA buttons, or "Call To Action" buttons)
10. Adding your own Logo and Tagline
11. Changing all of the necessary settings so your website runs smoothly
If you were to hire a web designer to build a Wordpress site for you, it would cost you a considerable amount of money. However, if you build it yourself by following this tutorial, you’ll just need a few bucks to get started. Also, you don't have to know any html coding or previous web design experience to build a decent WordPress website.
How to Create a Professional-Looking Logo for Free
It is said that the more times a logo registers in your brain, the stronger the relationship and association you have to purchase that brand. With this in mind, we cannot underestimate the importance of having a logo for your website or business especially with a very competitive environment nowadays.
The video below will show you how to create a professional-looking logo for your website or business for free. We will use a free logo maker website called Logo Makr. By utilizing that tool, you will still end up with a great logo for your website or business without having any previous design experience. With a few clicks and drags of a mouse, there you go, you now have your professional-looking logo.
Site Audit Checklist for 2015
Performing a website audit is important for a number of reasons. By doing so, you can evaluate the healthiness of a web site in various aspects. You can then identify the problematic areas that need to be improved and come up with an action plan to correct them. It is also a way to see if your website is up-to-date with the latest developments and trends in search marketing.
Nowadays, there are various tools that you can use
to audit a particular website. However, the best approach is to do the audit
using a guide. By having a checklist, you can come up with recommendations of
what needs to be done so that the performance of the website in search engines
is improved. Below is a site audit checklist
that covers almost all aspects of a website.
Quick
overview
·
Check indexed pages
·
Review the number of organic landing pages
in Google Analytics
·
Search for the brand and branded terms
·
Check Google's cache for key pages
·
Do a mobile search for your brand and key
landing pages
On-page
optimization
·
Title tags are optimized
·
Important pages have click-through rate
optimized titles and meta descriptions
·
Check for pages missing page titles and meta
descriptions
·
The on-page content includes the primary
keyword phrase multiple times as well as variations and alternate keyword
phrases
·
There is a significant amount of optimized,
unique content on key pages
·
The primary keyword phrase is contained in
the H1 tag
·
Images' file names and alt text are
optimized to include the primary keyword phrase associated with the page.
·
URLs are descriptive and optimized
·
Clean URLs
·
Short URLs
Content
·
Homepage content is optimized
·
Landing pages are optimized
·
Site contains real and substantial content
·
Proper keyword targeting
·
Keyword cannibalization
·
Content to help users convert exists and is
easily accessible to users
·
Content formatting
·
Good headlines on blog posts
·
Amount of content versus ads
Duplicate
content
·
There should be one URL for each piece of
content
·
Do a search to check for duplicate content
·
Sub-domain duplicate content
·
Check for a secure version of the site
·
Check other sites owned by the company
·
Check for "print" pages
Accessibility
& Indexation
·
Check the robots.txt
·
Turn off JavaScript, cookies, and CSS
·
Now change your user agent to Googlebot
·
Check the SEOmoz PRO Campaign
·
XML sitemaps are listed in the robots.txt
file
·
XML sitemaps are submitted to Google/Bing
Webmaster Tools
·
Check pages for meta robots noindex tag
·
Do goal pages have the noindex command
applied?
Site
architecture and internal linking
·
Number of links on a page
·
Vertical linking structures are in place
·
Horizontal linking structures are in place
·
Links are in content
·
Footer links
·
Good internal anchor text
·
Check for broken links
Technical
issues
·
Proper use of 301s
·
"Bad" redirects are avoided
·
Redirects point directly to the final URL
and do not leverage redirect chains
·
Use of JavaScript
·
Use of iFrames
·
Use of Flash
·
Check for errors in Google Webmaster Tools
·
XML Sitemaps
·
Canonical version of the site established
through 301s
·
Canonical version of site is specified in
Google Webmaster Tools
·
Rel canonical link tag is properly
implemented across the site
·
Uses absolute URLs instead of relative URLs
Site speed
·
Review page load time for key pages
·
Make sure compression is enabled
·
Enable caching
·
Optimize your images for the web
·
Minify your CSS/JS/HTML
·
Use a good, fast host
·
Optimize your images for the web
Mobile
·
Review the mobile experience
·
Make sure analytics are set up if separate
mobile content exists
·
If dynamic serving is being used, make sure
the Vary HTTP header is being used
·
Review how the mobile experience matches up
with the intent of mobile visitors
·
Ensure faulty mobile redirects do not exist
·
Ensure that the relationship between the
mobile site and desktop site is established with proper markup
International
·
Review international versions indicated in
the URL
·
Enable country based targeting in webmaster
tools
·
Implement hreflang / rel alternate if
relevant
·
If there are multiple versions of a site in
the same language (such as /us/ and /uk/, both in English), update the copy
been updated so that they are both unique
·
Make sure the currency reflects the country
targeted
·
Ensure the URL structure is in the native
language
Analytics
·
Analytics tracking code is on every page
·
There is only one instance of a GA property
on a page
·
Analytics is properly tracking and capturing
internal searches
·
Demographics tracking is set up
·
Adwords and Adsense are properly linked if
you are using these platforms
·
Internal IP addresses are excluded
·
UTM Campaign Parameters are used for other
marketing efforts
·
Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects are
avoided
·
Event tracking is set up for key user
interactions
A Basic Guide on When to Post Your Social Media Updates
One of the keys to improving your social media
presence is to post your updates strategically. Take note that different social
networks have different kind of users with varying daily activities. Thus, posting
your social media update at the right time will help you attain maximum
engagement from your targeted audience. It is then your duty to find out what
these times are as well as the best days to publish your social media post.
Below is a basic guide to the best times and days to post your social media updates on Facebook,
Google+, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Tumblr.
Click to enlarge the image
Note: The above infographic is originally from www.socialmarketingwriting.com
Matt Cutts’ Reply to More than One H1 on a Page
Watch the video to see Google software engineer Matt Cutts’ reply if it is good or bad to have more than one H1 on a page. This
was last February 26, 2009 and the question was from Erin of south of Boston.
Ping Sites List 2014
If you have a blog or website, you might already have
encountered the term called Ping. It is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by
which a particular weblog informs a server that its content has been updated. With
Ping services, it allows you to automatically notify blog directories and
search engines that your blog has been updated. Eventually, you’ll have higher chances
of receiving traffic from those sources.
Here’s a list of some Ping sites that you might want to use for any updates on your blog:
15. snipsnap.org
17. just-ping.com/
20. blogpeople.net
24. ping.fc2.com
26. ping.blo.gs
27. ping.amagle.com
28. blogdb.jp
30. a2b.cc
31. blo.gs/ping.php
32. blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
33. blogpeople.net
34. blogroots.com
37. lasermemory.com
39. bulkfeeds.net
42. pingoat.com/
43. popdex.com
46. weblogues.com
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