SEO Help good URL whatisacnc.com
Permalink 5 users found helpful
Hi,
Just wondering if there is a trick or two when it comes to SEO and Concrete5. I recently put something together using concrete5 and I am very happy with the results, but for some reason I can't rank very well in Google MSN Yahoo and Bing. One day using a SERP checker I will be in postition 6 and the next day position 11.
Also can anyone help me with a Forum for Concrete5? I think it will help with SEO, but not sure.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Rob from
http://www.whatisacnc.com
Just wondering if there is a trick or two when it comes to SEO and Concrete5. I recently put something together using concrete5 and I am very happy with the results, but for some reason I can't rank very well in Google MSN Yahoo and Bing. One day using a SERP checker I will be in postition 6 and the next day position 11.
Also can anyone help me with a Forum for Concrete5? I think it will help with SEO, but not sure.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Rob from
http://www.whatisacnc.com
add meta keywords that pertain to the content on the site, that will help a lot.
I beg to differ.
Google doesn’t use the keywords meta tag in web search. This this an official position.
"Our web search (the well-known search at Google.com that hundreds of millions of people use each day) disregards keyword metatags completely. They simply don't have any effect in our search ranking at present."
Seehttp://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-...
Google doesn’t use the keywords meta tag in web search. This this an official position.
"Our web search (the well-known search at Google.com that hundreds of millions of people use each day) disregards keyword metatags completely. They simply don't have any effect in our search ranking at present."
Seehttp://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-...
Hey,
Mnkras is correct, adding meta data to the pages will help a great deal (if you havent done so already)and as also stated, make sure this data is relevant to the page content.
As for Forums, there are some good add ons within the C5 marketplace that will take care of this nicely for you, however, as with Blogs, these are only effective if they are updated regularly. Search engines look more favourably on sites with regular, relevant content changes than a site with stagnant pages.
Hope these pointers help and good luck :)
Mnkras is correct, adding meta data to the pages will help a great deal (if you havent done so already)and as also stated, make sure this data is relevant to the page content.
As for Forums, there are some good add ons within the C5 marketplace that will take care of this nicely for you, however, as with Blogs, these are only effective if they are updated regularly. Search engines look more favourably on sites with regular, relevant content changes than a site with stagnant pages.
Hope these pointers help and good luck :)
Adding metadata is an easy thing to do and there's no reason not to... but that being said, I don't think it really matters that much in terms of SEO helpfulness (it's what they call "necessary but not sufficient"). Getting the page titles right is far more important (see links below for more about this). But nowhere near as important as getting other "trusted" sites to link to your site, which is by far the most meaningful thing you can do SEO-wise.
"SEO" is more of a process than some thing you do once. Getting ranked well on Google takes time, it's more like a marketing effort where you need to continually do things as opposed to just a one-shot deal. This is not something that has a technical solution, but instead has to do with cultivating relationships, getting out there (virtually) and doing things that will make people link to you (but in a genuine way, not by paying for links.
These are the best resources I've found that explain what SEO is and how to do it properly:
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/everything-you-already-know-about-...
http://mattgemmell.com/2011/09/20/seo-for-non-dicks/...
http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimizat...
http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-st...
"SEO" is more of a process than some thing you do once. Getting ranked well on Google takes time, it's more like a marketing effort where you need to continually do things as opposed to just a one-shot deal. This is not something that has a technical solution, but instead has to do with cultivating relationships, getting out there (virtually) and doing things that will make people link to you (but in a genuine way, not by paying for links.
These are the best resources I've found that explain what SEO is and how to do it properly:
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/everything-you-already-know-about-...
http://mattgemmell.com/2011/09/20/seo-for-non-dicks/...
http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimizat...
http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-st...
Here's another blog post about some SEO basics I just saw today -- it talks about the importance of your site's page structure, breadcrumb links, and page titles. It also makes a good point about deciding if you want to target the "short tail" or the "long tail" (very popular topics that appeal to lots of people but have tons of competition, versus narrow topics that appeal to a small number of people but have little competition).
SEO is becoming fairly complex, and I'm not bad at it (some of my clients rank #1 for highly competitive keywords, facing 80 million pages). So here's my two cents.
- Concrete5 is a very good tool for SEO. I just ranked a site from nowhere to #3 for a competitive keyword in 9 days.
- Use a relevant domain name. If you sell cauliflowers in Portland, use www. portland-cauliflowers.com or similar.
- Make sure you are using a canonical redirection. Www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com are considered as two domains, create a redirect from non www to www.
- Meta tags that are useful : Title and Description. No more than 70 characters for Content. Dont stuff keywords. Use one keyword or two only, and make ALL descriptions different. Use synonyms.
- DO NOT use Meta Keywords. Not only it is not used AT ALL by search engines, but it is also considered a spam signal. I repeat : DO NOT USE Meta Keywords.
- Use pretty URLS. Mysite.com/index.php/?254 is not good. Mysite.com/my-product-name is good. Hyphens or underscore are OK, leave it up to Concrete5.
- Interlink pages. The content of each page should include a few links to other pages. I'm not talking about your nav bar here, but about content. For instance if you sell cauliflowers, write some stuff about it, and at some point link to the shopping cart page with the text anchor being "buy cauliflowers". All pages should be interlinked to at least a couple other pages. Do it in a smart way that would add value for the user.
- Add content. For instance, write a page about cauliflowers, where they come from, etc. Recipes. Anything you can think about as long as it is really related to your subject. Make sure you are actually ADDING VALUE for the user. If I land on your site, I must learn something.
- Add content again. You think that's enough ? It's not. Add a blog, or even better create a worpress blog hosted somewhere else. Post daily or at least twice a week. Include each time one or two links to relevant pages on your website. Monitor comments. Avoid spam.
- Each page you write should be targetted for no more than 2 or 3 keywords. But the best way to go is actually to write as if you were writing for an audience of beginners. People who know nothing about your product or service. Explain things, don't bother about keywords. It will come naturally. Writing for keywords makes things look not natural.
- Create a twitter account. Post content directly from your wordpress blog. Add Tweetcrete block on your Concrete5 site with your user ID.
- Create a Facebook fan page. Link it to twitter, and your site.
- Display social bookmarking icons (addthis addons on the marketplace) on your site footer. Do it for every page.
- Make sure your business physical address and phone number is displayed somewhere. This is an important non-spam signal. Also make sure you include a contact form on the same page. If your business is local, add a Google map.
- Optimize your images. Lightweight, fast pages are good. Make sure your host is fast. If necessary; use Google Chrome browser and add the Page Speed extension; check why your site is slow.
- Add Google Analytics code to your site. Check it regularly. Update or change pages that don't perform well.
- Add your site to Google Webmaster Tool. Submit a sitemap. Refresh the sitemap on Concrete5 when you added content or modified things. Check what GWT says.
- Add a DISQUS comment block on some pages. Allow commenting but moderate and monitor to avoid spam.
- Open a Youtube channel. Post a couple videos there, with the correct keywords.
- Create links from external websites. Check your competitors using OpenSiteExplorer.org, a free SEOMOZ tool : it will check your page against competitors. See where their links come from. Replicate the best rankings techniques. If your page cannot be analyzed because it's not present in the index, analyze your competitor's page.
- Post comments on forums. Don't hide, or impersonate someone : be yourself, and try adding value. On a cauliflowers forum, you would start posting about things, adding value there, without mentioning your brand or website, just explaining on your profile that you are a website owner. Then after 10 or 20 posts, when you are becoming a valuable member of the community, you can put a signature with your website URL, or explicitly tell that you have a solution for a specific problem.
- Rinse and repeat; particularly the content page. If you cannot write decent content, hire someone.
You won't be able to rank a site that has less than 30 pages except for very moderately competitive pages. For example, one of my clients ranks #1 for a low volume search on google.fr for even if the website has only 5 or 6 pages, but that is really a very low volume search, or, to put it differently, a highly narrow niche. The more pages you have, the better.
That's pretty much the basics. If you want to learn SEO, I suggest checking SEOMOZ (see one of Jordanlev's links above) they have tons of useful content on their blog.
One last word : don't use Alexa figures. They are utterly useless.
Cheers
Gil
- Concrete5 is a very good tool for SEO. I just ranked a site from nowhere to #3 for a competitive keyword in 9 days.
- Use a relevant domain name. If you sell cauliflowers in Portland, use www. portland-cauliflowers.com or similar.
- Make sure you are using a canonical redirection. Www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com are considered as two domains, create a redirect from non www to www.
- Meta tags that are useful : Title and Description. No more than 70 characters for Content. Dont stuff keywords. Use one keyword or two only, and make ALL descriptions different. Use synonyms.
- DO NOT use Meta Keywords. Not only it is not used AT ALL by search engines, but it is also considered a spam signal. I repeat : DO NOT USE Meta Keywords.
- Use pretty URLS. Mysite.com/index.php/?254 is not good. Mysite.com/my-product-name is good. Hyphens or underscore are OK, leave it up to Concrete5.
- Interlink pages. The content of each page should include a few links to other pages. I'm not talking about your nav bar here, but about content. For instance if you sell cauliflowers, write some stuff about it, and at some point link to the shopping cart page with the text anchor being "buy cauliflowers". All pages should be interlinked to at least a couple other pages. Do it in a smart way that would add value for the user.
- Add content. For instance, write a page about cauliflowers, where they come from, etc. Recipes. Anything you can think about as long as it is really related to your subject. Make sure you are actually ADDING VALUE for the user. If I land on your site, I must learn something.
- Add content again. You think that's enough ? It's not. Add a blog, or even better create a worpress blog hosted somewhere else. Post daily or at least twice a week. Include each time one or two links to relevant pages on your website. Monitor comments. Avoid spam.
- Each page you write should be targetted for no more than 2 or 3 keywords. But the best way to go is actually to write as if you were writing for an audience of beginners. People who know nothing about your product or service. Explain things, don't bother about keywords. It will come naturally. Writing for keywords makes things look not natural.
- Create a twitter account. Post content directly from your wordpress blog. Add Tweetcrete block on your Concrete5 site with your user ID.
- Create a Facebook fan page. Link it to twitter, and your site.
- Display social bookmarking icons (addthis addons on the marketplace) on your site footer. Do it for every page.
- Make sure your business physical address and phone number is displayed somewhere. This is an important non-spam signal. Also make sure you include a contact form on the same page. If your business is local, add a Google map.
- Optimize your images. Lightweight, fast pages are good. Make sure your host is fast. If necessary; use Google Chrome browser and add the Page Speed extension; check why your site is slow.
- Add Google Analytics code to your site. Check it regularly. Update or change pages that don't perform well.
- Add your site to Google Webmaster Tool. Submit a sitemap. Refresh the sitemap on Concrete5 when you added content or modified things. Check what GWT says.
- Add a DISQUS comment block on some pages. Allow commenting but moderate and monitor to avoid spam.
- Open a Youtube channel. Post a couple videos there, with the correct keywords.
- Create links from external websites. Check your competitors using OpenSiteExplorer.org, a free SEOMOZ tool : it will check your page against competitors. See where their links come from. Replicate the best rankings techniques. If your page cannot be analyzed because it's not present in the index, analyze your competitor's page.
- Post comments on forums. Don't hide, or impersonate someone : be yourself, and try adding value. On a cauliflowers forum, you would start posting about things, adding value there, without mentioning your brand or website, just explaining on your profile that you are a website owner. Then after 10 or 20 posts, when you are becoming a valuable member of the community, you can put a signature with your website URL, or explicitly tell that you have a solution for a specific problem.
- Rinse and repeat; particularly the content page. If you cannot write decent content, hire someone.
You won't be able to rank a site that has less than 30 pages except for very moderately competitive pages. For example, one of my clients ranks #1 for a low volume search on google.fr for even if the website has only 5 or 6 pages, but that is really a very low volume search, or, to put it differently, a highly narrow niche. The more pages you have, the better.
That's pretty much the basics. If you want to learn SEO, I suggest checking SEOMOZ (see one of Jordanlev's links above) they have tons of useful content on their blog.
One last word : don't use Alexa figures. They are utterly useless.
Cheers
Gil
Jeez, this is quite possibly the best answer I've ever seen in the forums on *any* topic!
Kind of ironic that your avatar picture is of a bot (and based on your followup about the OP, I wonder if he's a bot for real).
Thank you for taking the time to write this up, it will be very useful to people. You should consider submitting it as a "how-to" for the documentation.
Kind of ironic that your avatar picture is of a bot (and based on your followup about the OP, I wonder if he's a bot for real).
Thank you for taking the time to write this up, it will be very useful to people. You should consider submitting it as a "how-to" for the documentation.
Hey,I feel really honored to receive such a positive comment by who, but the Mighty Jordanlev himself, who contributed so many useful (and free) addons to the market place. Thanks Jordan, you make my day :)
Here's a PDF doc, I have added a couple things to explain a tad more. Not everything is covered (that would be a whole book) but hopefully some people may get some value from this. Comments welcome, then I will turn it into a How-to.
Ha. I have updated this thing and extended it to include some tools, instead of attaching it here I have published it on Scribd where I can upload revisions.http://www.scribd.com/doc/79378636/SEO-With-Concrete5...
Comments are welcome, I will gladly update and add things following requests.
Comments are welcome, I will gladly update and add things following requests.
@witwag
I am not an SEO expert, but know my way around pretty well and have a few "experts" I am working with on my global project.
They literally were looking over my shoulder when I was reading this.
In their words...
"wow, someone who gets it"
Well done!!!
I am not an SEO expert, but know my way around pretty well and have a few "experts" I am working with on my global project.
They literally were looking over my shoulder when I was reading this.
In their words...
"wow, someone who gets it"
Well done!!!
Thanks Clint ! Further to your comment (below) about duplicate content, I should mention there is not only the widely used Copyscape but also plagium.com which is free and had a nice chart.
Thank you very much!!
I have tried to do most of what you listed and will continue.
I really appreciate all your help and time.
Rob
I have tried to do most of what you listed and will continue.
I really appreciate all your help and time.
Rob
Rob,
I would also add that your site has lots of signal for spammy content :
- AdWords is the first content to appear. (You also have Amazon ads). That's a strong spam signal.
- Parts of your content is scraped from Dictionaries such as webster, so that gives your website a duplicate content penalty
- You have no navigation bar on said site, so if for instance someone goes to what-is-an-encoder page they have not way to get out and see another page from the site. That's a spam signal.
- Your homepage is stuffed with keywords (in the right column), some are duplicate. That's a spam signal.
- You are stuffing the (totally useless) meta keywords with...keywords. Spam signal again...
The fact that each of your 4 posts on the Concrete5 forums include a link to your website and tags, plus the fact that you did not post any reply in the discussions is in itself a spam signal :)) but that's another question. No offense.
Actually I'm surprised that your site ranks at all. It shows that Google Panda is far from perfect, although this seems to be a very narrow niche. Perhaps you should be #1 :)
If a Google quality rater was to rate your site, they would probably rate it as spammy, though, unless you change a few things outlined above.
I would also add that your site has lots of signal for spammy content :
- AdWords is the first content to appear. (You also have Amazon ads). That's a strong spam signal.
- Parts of your content is scraped from Dictionaries such as webster, so that gives your website a duplicate content penalty
- You have no navigation bar on said site, so if for instance someone goes to what-is-an-encoder page they have not way to get out and see another page from the site. That's a spam signal.
- Your homepage is stuffed with keywords (in the right column), some are duplicate. That's a spam signal.
- You are stuffing the (totally useless) meta keywords with...keywords. Spam signal again...
The fact that each of your 4 posts on the Concrete5 forums include a link to your website and tags, plus the fact that you did not post any reply in the discussions is in itself a spam signal :)) but that's another question. No offense.
Actually I'm surprised that your site ranks at all. It shows that Google Panda is far from perfect, although this seems to be a very narrow niche. Perhaps you should be #1 :)
If a Google quality rater was to rate your site, they would probably rate it as spammy, though, unless you change a few things outlined above.
Yep, Google penalizes for copied content. That was to get around the content sellers that were selling the exact same articles to many sites.
Thanks I'll heed this information too.
I've tried to make the changes you suggested, I really hope that I caught everything and that I understand everything properly, it would be nice if I had it setup properly now.
Also what's strange is I used a SERPS and sitemap generator and it looks like three links are coming back as "already listed" and the links aren't pretty, like this...
"website.ca/index.php?cID=287 Exists (already listed)"
I even have two coming back as having "Duplicate content".
Any suggestion on how to fix this?
Thanks again for all the help, you're super detailed and I'm great full that you took the time to check out the website and point out the flaws.
Please continue to critique if you have time, it's massive help.
All the best,
Rob
I've tried to make the changes you suggested, I really hope that I caught everything and that I understand everything properly, it would be nice if I had it setup properly now.
Also what's strange is I used a SERPS and sitemap generator and it looks like three links are coming back as "already listed" and the links aren't pretty, like this...
"website.ca/index.php?cID=287 Exists (already listed)"
I even have two coming back as having "Duplicate content".
Any suggestion on how to fix this?
Thanks again for all the help, you're super detailed and I'm great full that you took the time to check out the website and point out the flaws.
Please continue to critique if you have time, it's massive help.
All the best,
Rob
Rob
You dont need a sitemap generator. There's one included in C5.
If you are using 5.5 go to yoursite.com/index.php/dashboard/system/optimization/jobs/ and run the "Generate the sitemap.xml" file job
Make sure you have pretty URLs enabled see /index.php/dashboard/system/seo/urls/
and finally use the excellent bulk seo too to edit your pages /index.php/dashboard/system/seo/bulk_seo_tool/
If you still have duplicate pages problem you can just index one as the canonical page. Read this excellent post :http://www.seomoz.org/blog/which-page-is-canonical...
You dont need a sitemap generator. There's one included in C5.
If you are using 5.5 go to yoursite.com/index.php/dashboard/system/optimization/jobs/ and run the "Generate the sitemap.xml" file job
Make sure you have pretty URLs enabled see /index.php/dashboard/system/seo/urls/
and finally use the excellent bulk seo too to edit your pages /index.php/dashboard/system/seo/bulk_seo_tool/
If you still have duplicate pages problem you can just index one as the canonical page. Read this excellent post :http://www.seomoz.org/blog/which-page-is-canonical...
Great thanks I'll check it out!
All the best,
Rob
Quoting concrete5 Community <discussions@concretecms.com>:
All the best,
Rob
Quoting concrete5 Community <discussions@concretecms.com>:
