Category Archives: Small Business Marketing

The Easy and Search Friendly Way to
Setup 301 Redirects

HTML5, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Technology, Web Design

301 Redirect Using HTAccess fileAs many of you know I recently updated my entire website and in the process I had to setup 301 redirects for the new page names. Why should you do this when updating a site? It’s simple, when someone does a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo! it would yield a blank or 404 error page if there is no 301 redirect implemented.  A 301 redirect basically takes the old URL/page name and redirects it to the new page or URL.  Thus the information a prospective client is searching for will still come up seamlessly   This can mean the difference between a new client and a passerby.  But wait, couldn’t I have created the new pages with the old file names, Yes, I could have but I believe the newer page names I made are contextually more appropriate to the current content and making them more SEO friendly.  Also, I didn’t want to lose all of that old “Google juice” I had built up over the last 5 years, hence, I needed a 301 redirect.  There are many ways to setup 301 redirects but the following way is the easiest and most search engine friendly approach.  However, it should be noted that this  HTAccess approach is for Apache servers only.

Open a simple text file and name it .htaccess (you can not use Word or WordPad it must be a simple text editor with no formatting).

Depending on what you’re trying to do, redirect an entire site to a new domain or just redirect a page it would be as shown below.

Redirecting  a single page

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html
Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html http://www.yoursite.com/folder/

Redirect an entire site

This way does it with links intact. That is, www.oldsite.com/some/link.html will become www.newsite.com/some/link.html. This is extremely helpful when you are just “moving” a site to a new domain.
Place this on the OLD sites HTAccess file:
Redirect 301 / http://newsite.com/

Here is an example of my .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

%{HTTP_HOST} ^www.reelwebdesign.com$
^/?$ "http\:\/\/reelWebDesign\.com" [R=301,L]

Redirect /web_SMM_packages_NYC.html http://reelwebdesign.com/social-media-marketing-plans.php
Redirect /web_SEO_packages_NYC.html http://reelwebdesign.com/SEO-packages-NYC.php
Redirect /web_design_ny.html http://reelwebdesign.com/contact.html
Redirect /online_public_relations.html http://reelwebdesign.com/press-release-writing.html
Redirect /pay-per-click-management.html http://reelwebdesign.com/PPC-management.html
Redirect /local_SEO_packages.html http://reelwebdesign.com/local-SEO-packages.php
Redirect /web-design-services.php http://reelwebdesign.com/web-design-services.html

Notice the 404 Error Document is telling the browser to go to my 404.html file. This is another handy feature to implement in your .htaccess file.

Happy redirecting!

5 Tips for Online Reputation Management

Reputation, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, ,

Online Reputation managementWith more people getting all of their information online, it can be very hard to control your reputation. Information online gets passed from person to person quicker with the birth of social media marketing, plus people can put any information online whether it is true or not. It means that not only do you have to shake hands and kiss babies to maintain a positive reputation, but you also have to be very active and aware online. Here are five tips to help with online reputation management so that it matches your offline one.

Everything is Public

Even if you try to keep personal accounts and public accounts separate, it is still impossible to ensure that everything you want to be private stays that way. Forbes recommends that you do not put anything online unless you wouldn’t care if the whole world saw it. This way, even if something does get out from your personal account, it won’t cause any damage to your reputation.

Combat Negative Reviews

One of the biggest things that will impact your online reputation is the reviews that you get online. Unfortunately, people who are upset are more likely to leave reviews. The first step to combating negative reviews is knowing when they are posted. With the help of companies like Reputation.com, you can get alerts whenever a negative review is posted on a variety of sites, including Yelp and Google. That way, you can go in and address the review, leaving a comment to demonstrate that you care about their concerns.

Another way to counteract negative reviews is to get more positive ones. You can do this by asking your in-person customers if they would be willing to leave you an honest review online. Before long, Reputation.com will be able to track the results of your efforts by showing more positive reviews.

Spread the Wealth

There are bound to be some things posted about you online that you would rather not be there. While you cannot do anything to get rid of them, you can counteract them by spreading positive things about you all over the web. CIO points out that if you do this, when your name is searched, the positive items will show up over the negative ones. Have a strong presence through every facet of social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and Google+. Every keyword counts.

Be Active Online

Having a presence in social media is not enough. It is a great way to build up your search rankings, but you also need to respond to customers comments and concerns that are made via social media platforms. According to ReachCast, 60 percent of people who leave comments on social media pages expect a response. If you are not leaving responses, you are upsetting a large portion of your customer base. When you do comment, you need to acknowledge the concerns or express gratitude for the comments. Never argue.

Everything is Permanent

However you interact online, remember that everything you do is permanent. Even if the people involved will forget the instance in the near future, it is always searchable, and therefore, it can always impact your online reputation.

While your in-person actions can only be seen by those around you and can be forgotten over time, your online reputation lasts forever. It is vital that you take the time to ensure that you have an online reputation management procedure.

Social Is the New Measure of Business Success

Pinterest, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Technology

business success is socialFor the longest time, the goal of most companies has been to make more money than everyone else at the end of the day. Some of America’s most successful corporations are changing this way of thinking about business by choosing to focus not just on profits, but also on the number of people following their company.

Facebook provides a very simple and easy-to-read metric for analyzing just how well people follow these companies in the form of page “Likes.” Granted that it’s taken a very long time for these companies to amass as many followers as they have, their seems to be a clear payout from all their effort. The corporations with the most followers like Coca-Cola, Disney and McDonald’s have continued to be leaders in earnings reports each fiscal quarter.

Corporations that have chosen to ignore the impact of social media have instead found themselves behind where they should be in earnings. Some are even struggling. The benefits of creating a good customer relationship using social media is an undeniable fact in 2012, and it should continue to be just as important in the coming years.

Source: Top Business Degrees

Which Meta Tags Should I Use And Which Should I Ignore?

SEO, Small Business Marketing

Meta tags still importantEven with all the current changes going on in the SEO world, with the penguins and the pandas – the little things still matter. Getting your site set up well from the start is a must. A key part of that is the good old fashioned meta tag. They have been there since the early days of SEO and search engines and while they won’t get you to number one on their own, they are the key foundation of a good website. These site set up tips are by Goddard SEO.

The Title tag

The title tag is often abused. People stuff it with keywords, make it hundreds of characters long, give every page the same tile or give the them titles like “home”. People are still somehow getting the humble title tag wrong. It is still an important tag however. Getting it right is still important. It becomes the clickable link in the search results and for that reason alone you should make it as clean and tidy and relevant as possible. It is also part of the ranking algorithm and should be used properly. Don’t keyword stuff, keep it relevant and to 60 to 70 characters.

Description tag

This will generally show up under your clickable result in Google. While sometimes they will pick content from your page to use as the description they still use this tag on occasion. Make sure it is properly filled in, relevant and useful and not stuffed with keywords.Make sure each page has a unique description and keep it to 150 to 200 characters.

Canonical tag

This tag is very useful for complicated CMS’s and Shopping websites where similar pages are generated based on the users choices. For example a shopping result page might be filtered by price or colour or type but may contain essentially the same content in a different order. This can lead to you getting a duplicate content penalty if not handled correctly. By putting this tag in place you can select the one version of the page you want to be the “real” one. Make sure you set it up correctly and its a great asset to your site.

Author tag

If you write on multiple sites this is a must. It will let your Google+ picture show up in the search results next to your site or a site that has your article on. This increased click throughs, increases author awareness and lets Google tie you together and give you credit when you guest post on someone else’s website. Since the early days of this tag they have worked and tweaked the way it is implemented and it is now relatively easy to get set up and working, even if it takes a few weeks to start showing up in searches.

Keyword Tag

Avoid this tag. Google does not use it, Bing has said that they sometimes use it as a keyword over stuffing spam signal. Its a waste of time and could end up doing more harm than good.

Author:

Gareth Goddard runs Goddard SEO a London based Boutique style SEO agency helping a variety of businesses grow through organic search and online marketing.