Host Blog As Folder Not Subdomain

When deciding on where and how to host your blog consider the following.

If you have the choice between:

• myblog.someotherguysdomain.com
• myblog.yourdomain.com
• www.yourdomain.com/myblog

Use www.mydomain.com/myblog.

This will improve the ranking of yourdomain.com. Why put the work in to build the reputation of someotherguysdomain.com when that effort can go into building yourdomain.com?

So why is this blog on blogspot.com not GalaxyWebsiteDesign?  Well, if you use more than one blog to increase the width of your profile on the net they can't all be on one domain. :)

And, yes, having more than one blog can be one way to increase your profile on the net. Just be careful to not spread yourself too thin and/or over commit. Because I have different clients that ask for help on specific blogging software, I maintain blogs in several parts of the web -- so that I can experience first hand what my clients are going through. Thus, at the moment, I am not heeding my own advice and I'm spread a little thin. :)

In any case, given a choice, have your blog be a subfolder of your domain.

Back To Basics

In case you are wondering, I am not an expert in SEO. I am willing to share what I do know, and, I'm willing to learn. I think SEO can be a great and wonderful thing. However, I advise my clients to forget about it.

I advise my clients to concentrate on WSO (website optimization) and marketing. But isn't SEO mostly website optimization and marketing? Yes. But, it is a slightly obfuscated version. So lets get back to basics and and address the issues in their fundamental state.

I'm convinced that by dividing the tasks into WSO and marketing it will help to concentrate and focus our efforts.

First things first -- you need a website.

If you want to sell a product or service from your website you need a website. That much is obvious. Do not worry at this point about how people are going to find your website. When selecting a name and building your website, almost everything you need to know will come from an earnest desire to have the website and build it. I'll show you what I mean.

If you want a website devoted to cupcakes, then you need to think about using the word cupcake in the name of the website. Notice that I said, you need to think about using the word cupcake in the name. I did not say you MUST use cupcake. Look at google.com. No where in the website name does the word search appear. So it is possible to have a domain name that does not contain words exactly related to your prime interest. But they must be related somehow.

Using common sense you can deduce that a website name of Pets-Galore.com will be a poor choice for a domain devoted to baked goods in general and donuts in particular. A good friend is starting up a website about cooking called CloisterKitchen.com. That will work for her website. The website relates recipes and training videos related to cooking method developed in a kitchen that is part of a cloistered nunnery. Makes perfect sense. You could if you had an odd sense of humor and felt adventuresome use the name Yummy-Lumps.com for a website selling donut holes and cupcakes. The words cupcake and donut hole do not appear in the name. But it could work.

So using common sense and a sincere desire to actually tell people what your website is and does through its name you will inevitably come up with a reason name -- even though we have not talked about SEO stuff.

Having a name is not enough. You need content.

Again we shall avoid fancy SEO considerations and just talk about content from a common sense perspective.

If you write a letter to a friend inviting them to come for a visit, you need to actually include an invitation in your letter that asks them to come for a visit. Since a letter is a written form of communication you must use words to convey your wish for this friend to come visit. AND, you must use words that your friend will understand. When generating content you have to split your attention so that a portion of your attention is used to write the content and a portion of your attention is used to read the content as you go. This way you can answer that all important question: "Does this content get my point across?"

If you know that your friend is a lazy reader, then you might want to include your invitation in several different ways. You may want to repeat the significant portions of your message several times in the content of your letter. This just makes sense.

Start with a sincere desire to communicate, use your attention, and tell yourself the truth. You do not have to study SEO. Just care about your reader getting your message, use your attention, and be willing to see what is rather than what you hope.


It all becomes obvious. If you want your reader to know you are selling cupcakes, then you need to talk about cupcakes. If the words on the page discuss your pet cat, the neighbor down the street, and rainbows how can you dream that anyone reading such content will get your message about cupcakes.

In summary:

• A domain name without content is not a website
• Content unrelated to the purpose of your website is not a website.

More later.....

Just Say No To SEO

Admittedly a slightly inflammatory title for an article about SEO. The lesson that I hope you can take away from this blog is that it is a mistake to concentrate on SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)  You will be much better served by concentrating on WSO (WebSite Optimization).

To concentrate on WSO (website optimization) requires first that you divide SEO into two distinct and separate areas of endeavor -- 1) website development, and 2) website marketing.

All of the discussion around SEO have confused these two. The topics of website development and marketing of one's website have been mushed together. This has served (either deliberately or accidentally) to confuse the issues of web development and marketing. This has made it possible for certain service companies to create a niche for themselves that allows them to provide a service that is inherently difficult to measure.

Let's get back to basics. Let's have those folks that know the products and services represented by the website spearhead the development -- with expert technical help where and when necessary. And, let's have those folks that know marketing spearhead the marketing of the website. If you happen to be running a one man (or one woman) operation, then get yourself two hats and get down to business wearing only one hat at time.

In my next blog, let's start assigning SEO tasks to each of these hats.

It Takes Passion

I was speaking with two new clients this evening. A very pleasant couple, both artists with a background in several old school marketing. They know what they are getting into and are well prepared for it.

That's not what this blog is about. At least not directly. As I was speaking with the couple, asking questions, poking and prodding into their situation and hopes for their website I realized what it was I looking for -- I was looking for their passion. Before taking them on as clients I needed to uncover the degree of passion they had for their business.

It is clear to me that passion is the one thing that will help see one through the road ahead of each website owner. Need does not do it. Trying to get from here to there with "need" as your fuel is not the way to go.

Need can be a powerful motivator. But, working from need can be such a struggle.

I'll give you an example. We all know that social media is an excellent place to make contacts and create buzz about your website. And, we know that if your need is profound enough you can keep your nose to the grindstone without fail. However, if you have a passion then you don't have to worry about keeping your nose to a grindstone -- there is no grind.

If you are passionate about ceramics creating blogs, tweets, and writing on facebook walls about ceramics is no chore -- it is your passion. It comes easy AND the process is your reward. Using a need to drive you is so different. A need for sales is not satisfied in the present. The connection between writing yet another blog about ceramics and making a sale is tenuous at best. There is correlation. But it is hardly absolute. Hence, writing  blogs, tweets, and facebook prods will not translate into immediate satisfaction.

Need is good. A need for sales will turn a hobbyist into a pro. But the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine (of day to day work) go down is passion.

When trying to satisfy a need (such as income generation) I believe it is crucial to find a way that allows for the expression of your passion at the same time. This will give you the juice to make it through the humps and hurdles that are sure to come your way in this business.

Search Engine Spam

Spam is usually associated with email -- and for a few folks a pork-based meat cube in a can. We all agree that email spam is a bad thing. And email programs around the world are taking more and more steps every day to exclude spam.

There is such as thing as search engine spam as well. In email spam, the spam is volumes of un-wanted emails. In search engine spam, the spam is volumes of un-wanted content on a web page. If you let this notion of search engines such as google defining something like "un-wanted content on a web page" you might get a little annoyed at the prospect of google (or anyone else) trying to tell me what I can and cannot put on my website.

Here is the deal. At the moment, google is not making comment about all the content on your website. Google is making comment about that content on your website that is there specifically to influence google's page rank of your website and to influence how high in the search engine results page (SERP) your website appears.

So what is search engine spam?

Sorry there is no simple definitive answer. Every search engine has a set of constantly evolved rules used to define what constitutes search engine spam. Basically search engine spam is whatever programmers working for the search engine companies define it to be today. Today's rules may be different than yesterday's and tomorrow's rules may be different than today's rules. Hence a definitive answer is not so simple.

But, if we look toward a general definition of search engine spam the answers are very simple. There is widespread agreement among search engine professionals as to the basics of what constitutes spam.

The most obvious and agreed upon search search engine spam tactics are:

• hidden text
• mirror sites
• doorway pages

Hidden text

Hang on to your hats this part might get tricky. Hidden text is text that is hidden. There you have it.

If you have text that human readers of your website cannot see, then search engine programmers assume that you are doing something tricky directed at the search engine robots. This might seem a bit egocentric on the part of the search engine companies. But, the internet is their world and we only live in it. Also, I suppose that fact that zillions of black hat and grey hat web designers have used hidden text in exactly this way might explain why the feel it is directed at them.

How can text be made invisible to humans -- but viewable by robots?

• white text on a white background
• css style sheet tricks
• microscopic font sizes
• floating images over the top of the text

Text hidden in this way is usually just a bingy-bunch of keywords -- keywords repeated, and keywords in multiple variations. Some webmasters use this trick to accomplish keyword stuffing without making the page look ridiculous to a human reader.

If you try tricks like this you might get away with it for a short while, but eventually the search engine geeks will find a way to detect your tricks and then slap you silly for trying to out-smart them.

Mirror sites

A mirror site is a site that mirrors another site -- basically a duplicate site.

Now it is time to worry a little more about being accidentally slapped down. Ever noticed how godaddy and other registrars encourage you to register the .net, .org, .cc, .info, and dot everything as a means of protecting your branding? If you register the .com and .net for the same domain name and use a httpd.conf referral so that both names point to the same website you run the risk of having a search engine interpret this as mirror sites. They might think you are doing this as a trick or gimmick.

Before we continue along this line of discussion let's look at the types of mirror sites that the search engine manipulators use. SEM will duplicate (mirror) a website's content so that they can attach different keywords to the same content. One site will display the content with a particular set of keywords and another site will display the exact same content with a different set of keywords.

On the face of it, this is not a bad idea. Because different demographics search for the same (or similar) items using different keywords it makes sense to have different sites that are directed to each of the target demographic groups. Search engines do not want you to do this -- it clutters up their SERP pages. The search engine result pages are their pages and they do not like people doing stuff that clutters them up or has a negative impact on user experience of their pages.

Once upon a time search engines were a collection of links to internet websites indexed so that users could search for specific content. These listings were monetized by placing ads and other services on the margins. Now, however, search engines have become content.

Let me give you an analogy. A library has an index card catalog giving reference to the various books contained within its shelves. A library will typically exert no influence on the content of the index. An editor assembling an anthology of short stories does something very different. The editor will incorporate the stories directly in the anthology book. Thus the editor views the stories as content and will be very selective about which stories appear in the anthology. This is natural since each story included in an anthology reflects upon the anthology as a whole. That is the editors job.

Well, once upon a time search engine companies were like librarians. Somewhere along the line these search engine companies have developed into editors that view the presented pages as content not a card catalog.

Even if you think you have valid reasons (i.e. demographic targeting) it is best to never mirror your site. And, if you have registered multiple domain names as a branding ploy or a means to protect your trademark, do not point those domains toward the same website. It is risky. Search engines might be smart enough today to tell that you are using different names for the same content for legitimate reasons. However, in the future there could be a glitch that causes your site to look like you are "up to something." Also, having multiple links to the same content will dilute your page ranking. So don't do it.

Doorway pages

In order to define what a doorway page is, let's look at an example of why one might want to use a doorway page.

Let's say you have a product to sell. Let's say that your marketing guys have created a killer web page with with a super high conversion rate. I mean this page is a total killer. Anyone that gets to this page is totally compelled to buy. That is a very good thing. But, what if this page totally sucks as getting placement in the search engine rankings?

So now you have a page that converts like a king, but the page is not optimized for search engine placement. A natural idea would be to make a page that is optimized well for the search engines that will act as a doorway between the search engine and your killer sales page. This is a doorway page.

Problem is, search engine manipulators have used doorway pages in an abusive manner. Consequently, search engines now penalize websites that use this tactic. Not to worry though. If you truly have a killer conversion page just use ads to direct traffic to your page.

Please note, one of the methods used to mark a doorway page as a doorway page is website internal links. If you have a page with zero links to it from the rest of your website it starts to look like a doorway page.

The rule of thumb is "if you can't access a page from the interior of your website, it looks like a doorway page."

In conclusion

The search engine world is changing. It is your responsibility to look squeaky clean to the search engine robots. If you deliberately, or accidentally, use search engine spamming techniques you will be labeled as a search engine spammer and your page ranking will suffer the consequences.

Some of these so called tactics are innocent -- such as accidental mirror sites. But, search engine robots have little ability to detect your intention. As far as the search engine robots are concerned, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it is a duck.  It is your job to make sure you do not look like a duck.

If multiple urls point to the same content, then take down all but one.

If you have registered multiple domain names for the same website,  drop one of the names and use a permanent redirect to inform search engines of the change.

If hidden text has crept into your website, for legitimate reasons or not, remove it. You will eventually be slapped down.

A final thought

There are more than a few sensible marketing ploys that can be misinterpreted as spamming. Be careful. You will never receive a warning, you will never be issued a citation, you will never have access to a defined system of arbitration. Your pages will simply be slammed. It is your job to not only stay within the spirit of the law, but also within the appearance of the law. It's not our world, we just live in it.

Why I Do This

I had a great meeting today with an old friend that I haven't seen for about a decade.

He is preparing for retirement from a very successful dental laboratory service company that he built from the ground up. Now that he is getting closer to that magical day, he has begun in earnest the process of building a set of websites that will be enjoyable for him to run, exercise his penchant for creative activities, and provide a handy income to supplement his current portfolio.

For his purposes it looks like he will need seven websites. All of the websites involve hobbies or passions he has nurtured over the years. But, he just wasn't able to make the leap from thinking about doing it to doing it.

What was holding him back? A handful of progress blocking speed bumps -- a few web issues beyond his skill set. To him they were monstrous complexities. To me, because of my background in programming and website design, they were interesting challenges to be processed through rather quickly.

It was like a cork screw salesman stumbling upon a group of friends gathered in the park for an outdoor wine tasting event -- to which no one had thought to bring a bottle opener.

Through my geekitude and background, I was able to remove a road block that was keeping him from creative expression of his passions.

I didn't create his passion, I can't take any credit for the hard work ahead of him. But, I can feel good about helping him get started -- and perhaps lending a hand from time to time at need.

To me this is leverage of the best variety.

Morphotony -- An unexpected alarm mechanism

A few months ago I registered the domain morphotony.com after discovering that it had the word morphotony had zero search results in google.

How and why did I come to search for the word morphotony? Was in the process of looking up possible names for a band I play bass in. Morphotony was just one of many names we were looking into. (We finally settled on Faxl).

Any way, while looking to see if any existing bands were using the name I noticed that out of the trillions of web pages on the internet google had cataloged zero with the word morphotony. So of course I couldn't rushing out and registering the name. Somehow the fact that no one else on the planet had any interest in the word did not deter my enthusiasm. If I ever get a psychiatrist, I guess I should bring this up in a session -- or two.

Any, any way..... I now have the website and I have established a google alert to inform me of any new pages with the search term morphotony.

That means any time a page is indexed by google that contains morphotony I will be informed. Thus, I have an automatic ping back when google indexes a page. All I have to do is slip "morphotony" onto the page.

For your website, you would want to find a word that works for you.