Category — SEO

Everyone knows @likeomg and me created a new species for Amnesia Razorfish in the Velociroflcoptersaurus recently. That ballooned into a social media competition spanning across Twitter and the search engines and is somewhat of an urban legend now.

At the last count, there was around 7,500 results in Google and 15,600 in Live Search. That’s pretty impressive for word we made up!

So, @delicategenius interviewed @likeomg, @eunmac and @gregory_brine to find out more about how and why it came into existence. You can watch it over at the Delicate Genius Blog: DG TV: VELOCIROFLCOPTERSAURUS. Enjoy.

Article Links

• @likeomg
• @eunmac
• @gregory_brine
• Delicate Genius Blog
• Amnesia Razorfish
• Velociroflcoptersaurus
• DG TV: VELOCIROFLCOPTERSAURUS
• Google
• Live Search

Updated in response to Stu’s article.

Since I wrote this article, I have learnt a lot about .NET and indeed it is a framework - Stu and some of the many talented .NET developers I have worked with demonstrate this concept brilliantly. My original point was that since people have been working in the associated language - C# and VB.NET for example - they have had an ignorance of the what is going on around it and instead relied on it providing everything they need. This often leads to the solution being created not being over complicated and as a result, affecting the end-user experience.

That was merely my point. No-one can be a master of everything, and shouldn’t expect to be. But to ignore what’s going around you is foolish, especially given how complex websites are these days.

Sorry if anyone took this the wrong way, it was never my intention.

OK, so a slightly long winded title, but I have to express a concern of mine. Recently I’ve been trying to hire web developers for my team to build web site, but I’m hitting a continual brick wall… Most of them actually don’t know how to build a web site!

These people know .NET, which is obviously a good thing, but they don’t seem to have any awareness of the other elements of the website. If it’s not in .NET code, and if it’s not a built in .NET control, then why should they need to know it? That’s the way it comes across to me.

When I started learning web development, I tool the approach of learning HTML mark-up first, then moving to server-side code in the form of Coldfusion. It seemed logical to do it that way, as ultimately what the end user sees is HTML. When CSS came along, I jumped on that bandwagon, and loved it. It helped me breath new life into my code. Then I changed from Coldfusion to Classic ASP and Microsoft SQL. All this enabled me to take a Photoshop file and deliver a complete website with a database driven back-end - incidentally built using the CMS systems I have developed over the years.

Recently, I started learning .NET and I’ve realised what a lazy language it is. Everything about it is geared to not really needing to think about anything! Everything is done for you, to the extent where you just need to start typing and Intellisense kicks in and tells you what you probably meant - and most of the time it’s right. I think that should be a good thing as it gives you more time to focus on the HTML, CSS and JavaScript side of things, delivering a great looking, functional website which validates if possible.

This also gives you more time to ensure the other elements of the site are more polished and included, perhaps affording you time to improve your RSS feed to include the most up to date information. Looking at a new technique such as integrating the Open Search for people’s toolbar or including microformats. Carrying out those last checks such as ensuring the Google Analytics and sitemap code is included and working.

However, that’s not how it works now. Apparently, people that know .NET are exempt from knowing anything outside of .NET when it comes to building a website, which to my mind makes them an Application Developer, not a web developer. Recently, we had an intern in who said he was good at html and CSS, but when you say that’s good and can he turn this PSD into a site, he says know, that’s someone else’s job as if he’s more important than that because he knows .NET.

Why has this happened? It’s a single language, so why do these people place so much value on this one skill over the other, in my opinion more important, elements of the site? I think it’s the banks. Think about it. Banks have recently built massive systems and brought everything online over a period, paying people lots of money for that period and then letting them all go once that task was completed, flooding the market with people who thought they understood the web. It’s a shame, but it affects smaller companies the most ultimately.

Add to that that they don’t seem to understand the idea of a good user experience, and are happy if what they build works. They don’t care if it works well, and don’t even seem to notice if something doesn’t work as well as it could. If a page is slow, doesn’t matter, it loads. If a page is hard to use, doesn’t matter as it works doesn’t it? I find that a strange attitude.

We’ve been talking internally, and are hopeful that a change is afoot and that the days of the true web developer will return again. The developers I place highest value on can be given a PSD and produce an entire website, optimised and including all the elements that make a website great! And I really hope that hope comes true.

This site is going through a bit of a re-vamp at the moment. The old site, at www.gregorybrine.com has been live for a while now, and I felt like re-developing it to have a more web 2.0 design and feel.

A while ago, I built a demonstration version of gregorybrine.com using Ajax. The reason being that I wanted to test a idea I had for a very fast, highly interactive site that we could use for Wiliam’s new web site. The site needed to make heavy use of Ajax and also be search engine friendly. No easy task. That demonstration version has been sitting on my computer for a while now, and I finally started having the ideas I wanted to really push.

So what’s going to be new? Well, I can’t tell you everything yet, as there’s some under the hood stuff I’m doing that I don’t think anyone’s done before. Then there’s the URLs. I wasn’t happy with some of the old ones as they had spaces and non-compliant characters in them. The new site doesn’t have these, and the SEO benefits are already shinning through. The site’s been up for about 3 weeks, and it’s already getting traffic from Google, and hopefully With my planned updates, that’ll increase further still.

The design you see is not the design. It was simple a design I put in to highlight the highly modular nature of the site, and how elements can be updated on the fly. The final one will be something special I hope - I have an amazing web designer helping me get it just right.

Watch this space… I’ll be updating the technology over the coming weeks, and hopefully start designing it too.

And the old URL will soon be pointed to be pointed to the www.gregory-brine.com content

Ok, so part of the aim of building my website originally, other than so my friends could keep track of my travels, was to try and get my name in lights on Google. By this, I mean that I wanted my surname, Brine, to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results., to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results., to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results., to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results., to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results., to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results.. By this, I mean that I wanted my surname, , to rank near the top of Google, if not the top, then very near it. This is made difficult by the amount of (Pay Per Click) advertising that takes up the first 9 results.Running a search on the 3 major search engines, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search, you can see that my site struggles to get a good search position. In fact, the best position I managed is page 8 on Google - which isn’t too bad, but I want higher.So, what can I do about this? Well, the first thing to do is lookup what sites do appear for Brine. It’s clear to see that being such a common substance, the primary results are not as clearcut as you would expect. The mix includes definitions from sites such as Wikipedia and the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. This kind of makes sense, as a lot of sites will link to these, and they provide a good dense usage of Brine in their content.

Next up comes the cookery sites, with some great cooking tips from Cooking For Engineers and Ochef on the process of Brining. Behind that comes some of the more obscure things, such as Brines Sporting Goods, and Water flows on Mars, by the BBC. There’s also sites on treating water with Brine, such as Brine tanks by the Clack Corporation.

But, in amongst all this are the personal sites. How some of these get here is a mystery! One example that I’ve never worked out is chrisgregory.com. How that site stays in the index is beyond me, as it’s not been updated since May 2005. But, then there’s the genuine ones, such as the American singer, Mark Brine.

So, what am I doing to try and change this. Well, this blog is a start. The idea being that I’ve made good use of my keywords, Brine and Brining, ensuring that they’re used a suffecient amount - but not too much - and where possible, linked either back to this site or to external sites, such as Wikipedia that talk about Brine. There’s also the social tags I’ve used. Obviously, the main ones are Brine and Brining, along with my usual tags. I’ll be posting the page around a few websites, and relying on the RSS Syndication to work it’s magic. Then, hopefully in a week or so, I’ll start to see to a difference for that keyword…

The true measure of this SEO test will be whether or not using Brine in this way will make a difference. I’ll keep you posted…

For the first time this month, my website’s had more than 10,000 visitors in a month. Actually, it passed 12,000 too (If anyone cares for precision, it was 12,478). Ok, so all my friends are now groaning, but to me, that’s a pretty impressive number for a personal website that’s not selling anything.

So why do i think this happened? Partly due to re-writing the code of the site to be more search engine friendly. Partly re-writing the content to be more relevant - and to those who keep pointing it out, one day I will fill in the gaps. Posting articles and comments on forums and news sites around the web. And I’ve been updating the site a lot more regularly. Writing blogs, uploading images, just trying to keep the site fresh and interesting to those that follow, and perhaps a few out there just randomly wandering the web.

So, what’s next for www.gregorybrine.com? Well, when I get time, I’m starting to re-write it in Microsoft’s Asp .NET. As part of that, the galleries are getting an overhaul, and some friends are interested in combining sites - that could be interesting and fun. Oh, and I might move it to new, cheaper hosting… We’ll see. It’s all about having time, and a desire to finish at work, then sit in front of a computer doing more of the same… Hmmm… Let me think about that… I think I just heard the pub calling….

I started reading an article on Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Interactive Marketing site about changing our approach to SEO, so that it works better with Social Networks. The original post has since been added to, and the finally summary of the 16 rules can be found on the work the influence these networks will be having in the future, especially as they can really help to build brand awareness and loyalty, and as sites like Wikipedia start to lose their influence within search engines as their algorithms are updated and PageRanks recalculated.

As most of you who’ve previously looked at my site will no doubt have noticed, it’s been re-developed. On the outside, it doesn’t look too radically different. Images have appeared in the header. The overall layout is wider. The colours a bit more subtle, with a new look to indentify each section. But, quite a lot of work has gone on under the hood as I’ve tried to implement some of the knowledge I’ve gained at Wiliam, working closely with my friend Benjamin Christie Australian Celebrity Chef from TV Cooking Show Dining Downunder Blog" href="http://www.benjaminchristie.com/">Benjamin Christie.

So what’s different? Well, for a start it’s now running a simple Content Management System that I’ve written in PHP. Nothing too fancy yet, but it does allow me to structure the site in a much better way. This means that there’s always a breadcrumb trail. Always a well formed title and every page now has a meta description. This leads on to the content becoming much more ordered which, in one way can make a site really boring, and in another, makes it more enjoyable and engrossing for the end reader.

In the gallery, I’ve finally added in back and forward navigation. It tells you how many comments are in each section - incidentally, there’s now a filter to stop those irritating spammers posting links all over my site, so that even if they do, the search engine’s won’t follow them. They seem to have stopped that practice now thank goodness. I think you’ll also agree, the gallery looks that bit nicer and the search helps to make it more engaging. I’ll admit that I haven’t yet finished categorising all of the images, but I will when I get time - hey, I work long hours and have a busy life outside of work too!

The blog hasn’t changed too much internally, but on the outside, I’ve made the blogs more pronounced and more numerous across the site, but predominately on the homepage. But, and I’ve learnt this from several of the SEO sites I read, there’s a lot to be said for sharing links with other people. There are whole communities out there of people reading each other’s blogs, telling their friends, their friend’s friends, etc… It’s a big world out there, and the best way to get traffic and gain popularity on the web is to share. Some of the best and most popular for this are Digg, Feedburner and Technorati.

Getting down to the nitty gritty, well, lets just say that there’s a few more things going on in the structure and content of the code, and the use of tools such as Google’s Webmaster tools really helps to optimise your site and highlight any weaknesses.

By this point, some people are probably starting to wonder what the point of all this is, and be questioning whether I’m the victim of one of my own favourite sayings “You have too much time on your hands”. But it is part of what I do at work, and I am still trying to counteract those pesky recipes in Brine that are so favoured by Google.

So, is it working? Well, yes and no. I’m well and truly in the search results now, but I still haven’t managed to push it to the top of simply typing ‘Brine‘. I think that’ll take some work! But, I do now get search results coming in from Google, and the traffic is rising daily - since I started travelling, it’s gone up 600%, and since launching the new site, the traffic is going up even faster!

But ultimately, this site is for me and my friends to stay in touch, and if I make new friends along the way, then the web is working wonderfully well!

Links

Wiliam
Benjamin Christie Australian Celebrity Chef from TV Cooking Show Dining Downunder Blog" href="http://www.benjaminchristie.com/">Benjamin Christie
Google
Google’s Webmaster tools
Digg
Feedburner
Technorati

…but not as we know it! The imprecise art of search engine optimisation.

This site’s starting to look pretty sweet now, but I find myself getting way-laid by ideas. That next stylesheet, a piece of content there, a new link here. It’s getting quite excessive. Now I’m quite into the flow of building my site, I find I’m quite addicted to it. My next plan is to build an Admin tool for adding in links, then a gallery, then how to tie it all together.

It’s quite a learning experience too. I mean besides from learning PHP and MySQL, finding other pieces of content people might be interested in having read my site, pictures, people, places… it just goes on.

But, in building this new site, I’ve tried to address a problem I’ve always had, which is that my site never comes up in search engines if you type in my name. Now, as far as I can tell, there aren’t many Gregory Brine’s in the world. But, despite this, when I do a search, a lot of information about Shrimps comes up (the trouble with having Brine as a surname). This, unsurprisingly, worries me. A lot!

So, what am I doing to rectify this? Well, I’ve read just about every piece of information I can find on Google, Search.msn and various other places that might be able to help me get up there with the best. Basically, I’m not willing to use pay-per-click as this is not a commercial site, so what I’m doing optimising the content to make it search engine friendly. I’m also using the tools that the search engine’s provide, such as Google’s site maps, in an attempt to help it.

Optimising? How? What? In a nutshell, as far as I can tell, the first step to better ratings is to make the search engine work better when it reaches your site by making it as standard’s compliant as it can be. In my site’s case, I built the site to the W3C XHTML strict specifications, which you can validate on their website. All images have alt and title tags. The stylesheeets are fully validated. Even the RSS and ATOM feeds are fully validated to the latest specification (for anyone who wants to subscribe to them). I’ve also run accessibility checks, as opening the web up to as many people is an important part of the Web’s future, and a great way of seeing how well your site performs.

That’s good, but I think that’s only the start. Next up come some methods that have been around for a while, but either aren’t used, or people abuse them. Meta Tags. On this site, I’ve included every piece of information I can about my site, which the various engines will pick up, but I’ve tried to make them honest. Nothing’s repeated, it all says what it needs to. The title is well formed and uniquely identifies each page. There’s a description, a few choice keywords and, most importantly the robots and re-visit tags. So often people don’t include them, but if a search engine finds one of these, it’s like Charlie finding that Golden Ticket. It’s means the spider (that’s what the search engine uses), has a green card to look at everything it can find (or wants to look at). It also tells it to come back in however many days you say. These take a few seconds to add in, but can make such a difference!

Still not enough? Ok, then some good practices are to ensure that any page can be reached within 3 clicks of the homepage. This has the advantage of stopping the visitor from getting bored, and also prevents the Spider from getting lost. A fantastic way to do this, is firstly, think about the site layout, but also have a ‘Site map’ link on the homepage. It’s so simple, but so effective! One page that links to every other page on the site (with the exception of dynamic content such as blogs). This is also a major boon for accessibility as screen readers will pick it up.

If you still want more, then try Google’s site maps. This is a way to submit an XML file to them with every link in your site, how often that content changes, and how highly you rate it. Obviously, generating this XML file can take time, or you can use the free tool they provide. Or, if you have a bespoke content management system, you can generate this automatically and submit it to Google that way.

Send to a friend? The last trick is linking to other people (and hopefully them back to you). Part of what the spiders do is record any external links (other web sites) that they find. It then records that you’ve linked to them and, if they link back, it records that too. All this helps to improve your rating on the search engine as it suggests that your site is not on it’s own, but is part of a community. So, get your URL added to sites, profiles, whatever. But, and this is a big but, don’t be tempted to use those pay for link through schemes you hear about. The search engines monitor these, and it can result in you being black listed!

There’s still no guarantee this will all work, but I’ll be sure to let you know if it does the trick. So far, in looking at my site’s usage stats, the search engines and blog sites are starting to notice my site, and frequent them. I’m hoping this all helps me and anyone that reads this. And if anyone has any other tips, or feel what I’ve written is incorrect, please let me know.

Links:
http://www.w3.org/
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx