Avasoft Blog

Don’t be an SEO cheater.  You know what they say.  Winners never cheat and cheaters never win.  No one can benefit from cutting corners when it comes to SEO.  Of course to avoid cutting corners, first you have to know what SEO is and what it isn’t.

SEO: What it is and what it isn’t

SEO, or search engine optimization, does involve instituting the use of targeted keywords on your site so that when people search for these keywords, they land on your site.  However, no one can just wave their wand and poof your site to the top of the search results.  SEO is more than just a magic pill your website swallows and then suddenly hits the top of search engine results.  It isn’t the genie in that lamp you’ve been rubbing feverishly for months now in hopes of increasing your website’s rank.  SEO is hard work that takes time.

Many website owners seem to have some concept of SEO as a secret code that, when entered into their website, unlocks some magical ability for it to rank high in search engine results.  Of course having your site coded properly is the first step toward an enjoyable user experience, but coding can’t help you at all if your site doesn’t have any good content on it.

Did you notice the operative word in the previous sentence?  It’s “good.”  You need “good” content in order for your site to rank highly.  What makes content “good”?

• It’s fresh. – “Good” sites update their content regularly.  Search engines know when you last updated your site, and if it’s within the last week, you’re golden.
• It’s relevant. –This means using keywords that pertain to what’s on your site.  For example, if you sell tractors, don’t target keywords that have nothing to do with tractors just because those keywords happen to get a lot of attention from people using search engines.
• It’s informative. – These days Google’s crawlers have a pretty good idea about the quality level of what’s on sites.  They can recognize when the information that’s on your site is something that will actually help people, and they will reward this with a higher ranking.
• It’s unique. – Sites that copy the content from other sites word for word get penalized in the search results because they are just posting up the same information other sites have.  And what’s even worse, this is plagiarizing, which brings even worse consequences than poor search engine rankings.

Why You Can’t Afford to Skimp on SEO

Now that you understand what SEO really is, you’ll find out about why you can’t afford to cut corners with it.  You’ve probably seen some companies offering shortcuts or “cheats” to SEO that come at quite a high price.  Unfortunately most of these sites are scams because these SEO shortcuts are often black hat techniques that do nothing but prevent traffic from your site.

There is no way to get around the time and hard work it takes to get your website ranked highly in the search engines, but you will be greatly rewarded.  Here’s why you can’t afford not to do SEO the right way:

• Credibility – SEO shortcuts use some unethical techniques that damage your website’s credibility.  For example, scam companies might create fake Facebook or Twitter accounts to promote your site and get some backlinks by spamming your web address.  This is entirely unprofessional.  Create real social networking accounts yourself instead of using accounts created by spammers.
• Time –Taking shortcuts in SEO is often very expensive and often results in you paying for a link farm to list your site, but those link farms don’t rank highly in search results and often don’t get any actual users because they look like spam sites.  A better use of your money is paying a writer to write some “good” content for your site.
• Search engine rankings – If SEO isn’t done properly, your site won’t rank in the search engines.  If your site isn’t ranked, then no one will be able to find you and you won’t make any money.  Many so-called SEO shortcuts result in low or non-existent rankings.
• Pleased users – There are lots of not useful content & information on the internet these days that people have pretty much developed a natural filter for it.  However, when they find a site that truly has useful information, they will remember that site and reward its owner in some way, whether it’s through return visits or a purchase.

So don’t try to cheat when it comes to SEO.  Do it right the first time and reap the rewards of a job well-done.

For those at the beginning of starting an online school or training center there are many things to consider. First, the sheer number of Learning Management System platforms to choose from can add to the frustration of getting a project started. Every LMS has its own set of features and no two are the same. Cost is also a major consideration for most organizations. Each LMS has its own unique pricing structure. Some charge on a per learner basis while others charge a flat fee on a monthly or annual basis. There are many variants within these two basic approaches.

The first step is to determine your annual budget. This can quickly eliminate some platforms from consideration. Initial costs can often be more than ongoing annual costs. Your startup budget can be several times what your normal operating budget will turn out to be.

The second step is to determine what your specific requirements are for an LMS. Write those down and use them when you are talking to LMS vendors. If you have special requirements that are not met by a particular platform ask if the vendor will modify his system to meet your needs. Some will, many will not. If they are willing to modify their system be sure to get a firm quote for the work.

Once you determine the LMS platform that will fit your budget and your specific requirements the real work begins. Depending on your goals there are a number of approaches you can take. Your eLearning platform can be part of a blended learning system, it can provide live scheduled classes, it can provide solely on demand online classes or any combination of these. You can create your own courses, have courses created by a third party or buy SCORM (Scalable Content Object Reference Model) packaged courses and import them to your LMS. Generally, when you purchase SCORM courses you will pay on a per user basis.

You can learn more about the details of getting started in online training by going to http://www.Avasoft.net or by calling 239-567-9725.

I recommend you take a close look at Moodle.  This is an open source Learning Content Management System. It can be used free of charge. It is a feature rich system that can provide all the various approaches mentioned above.  Avasoft can host and even modify the system for you. Setup is free.

Shopping for a learning management system (LMS) is made difficult by the number of systems from which to choose. This blog will attempt to remove some of the confusion and mystery surrounding learning management systems.

There are many things to consider when looking for an LMS. The major considerations are budget, scope (number of learners and amount of content), hosted vs. non-hosted options, brandable vs. non-brandable systems, SCORM vs. non-SCORM systems and last but not least what you see is what you get vs. systems that can be customized to meet special requirements.

Budget:

Organizations generally start their initiative into distance learning with a fixed budget. The size of this budget can eleminate a host of LMS’s or not.

SCORM based systems tend to be high priced and license fees are often paid on an annual basis. In addition to this, per learner fees can raise the price beyond many budgets. LMS’s range in price from $5,000.00 to $50,000.00 or more. Some are cheaper initially but charge additional fees for features, number of learners, number of courses and bandwidth usage. These fees are repeated on a monthly basis raising the cost of ownership significantly.

Scope:

The size of the installation is often not given careful consideration. Are you expecting to have 50 learners or 10,000 learners, one course or 500 courses, a lot of video (this can lead to additional bandwidth charges).

Most systems charge extra for file storage beyond a set limit and bandwidth beyond a certain limit. This is no different than how a hosting company charges a Website owner for storage and bandwidth. Certainly the scope of the installation will influence this.

Hosted vs. Non-Hosted:

Some systems offer only a hosted option, others offer both options. For a number of reasons such as security, some organizations require they host the LMS themselves. Another obvious advantage to that is saving the cost of hosting with the LMS vendor. Generally expect to pay more to have the LMS vendor setup the system on your server. Many variables can make the setup more time consuming in a hosting environment not 100% controlled by the vendor.

Branded vs. Non-Branded:

Many LMS’s do not offer this option. Basically it allows you to offer your courses to organizations that want the content to appear to be coming from them. In other words, the look and feel the learner experiences is the same as the look and feel of the organization’s Website. This is usually a very costly option in those LMS’s that provide it.

SCORM vs. Non-SCORM:

As mentioned before, SCORM complient LMS’s are more costly than non-SCORM systems. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is a complex specification designed in response to a Department of Defense initiative to bring standardization to eLearning. One of the biggest advantages to having a SCORM based system is you can take a SCORM based course, packaged in a zip file, and easily import it into a SCORM LMS. This portability is very useful if you have several LMS’s and need to add the same course to them. SCORM content can also be added to non-SCORM systems but it is a more tedious process. If your content is free form such as a variety of Word documents, PowerPoint files, video files and Flash files, then a non-SCORM system will work just fine and you can save a great deal of money.

Here are some examples of LMS’s that fit a range of budget categories.

www.elearningmanagementsystem.com - This LMS is designed for small to mid-size installations. It is not SCORM complient. The vendor offers hosted or non-hosted options, branded or non-branded options and is customizable.

It is priced on the lower end of the scale.

www.xtention.com - This is a mid-range SCORM complient system. It offers branded and non-branded options.

http://www.Avasoft.net/e-learningmoodle.aspx - Avasoft works with organizations that choose the Moodle LCMS as their e-learning platform.

Moodle is open source so there is no charge for using it. The only cost incurred would be for hosting Moodle or any consultation or development services provided by Avasoft. For more information call 239-567-9725.

www.wsi-ole.com - This is a SCORM based LMS at the lower end of the price range. It offers branded functionality at no additonal cost. It is suitable for small to large installations. No non-hosted option is available.

www.blackboard.com - This is a very high-end system at the high end of the price scale. It is very capable and offers a large variety of add-on features.

If you are interested in training students or employees online you are most likely mired in researching the many options and systems available. This can be a daunting task. Here we will attempt to get you past the first decision you will be faced with in your quest. That is to focus your research on a SCORM complient Learning Management System (LMS) or a non-SCORM LMS.

SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is a complex specification designed in response to a Department of Defense initiative to bring standardization to eLearning. Without getting into the technical aspects of SCORM which would make the eyes of many scholars glaze over, I will attempt to hit the high points of whether it is right for you from an online training perspective.

The main reason to purchase a SCORM system is portability. Most content providers use SCORM complient authoring tools. If you are interested in purchasing a course from such a provider, having a SCORM complient LMS will greatly facilitate importing the course into your system. If you are a large college or university with many different SCORM LMS’s you could easily move courses between these different systems.

The main reason to avoid SCORM is cost. Most vendors charge large annual licensing fees for SCORM systems. In addition, they charge monthly fees based on the number of learners you have in the system. To add insult to injury they often charge additional fees for add-on services and features.

One example would be branding. If you want to sell your courses to different institutions and brand them accordingly, you will pay dearly for the privilege. A stark exception to this is Moodle. This is a SCORM compliant LCMS that is open source and free to use. The only costs associated with using Moodle are hosting, training, consulting or course development services. Avasoft is a company that will setup Moodle on their servers at no charge and offer many services to get your school online.

For more information go to http://www.Avasoft.net/e-learningmoodle.aspx or call 239-567-9725.

These days pretty much everyone is using the internet on their phone.  They aren’t tied to a desk looking for information.  They’re out and about, so it is more important than ever before that you have a mobile website that’s not only functional on mobile phones but also easy to find, and that means that you’ve got to be indexed.

Just as traditional websites are indexed by search engine crawlers, which work on ranking sites according to keywords, mobile sites also need to be indexed.  However, there is one big problem with this.  Most website owners just assume that if their traditional site is being indexed by the search engines, then their mobile site is too.  Unfortunately that just isn’t the case.  Google has released some tips to help website owners make sure that their mobile sites are being indexed properly:

• Build a sitemap for your mobile send and submit it to Google so the search engine is aware it exists.  Use Webmaster Tools to do this.
• Check to see if Google’s mobile crawler can gain access to the site by enabling any user-agent to access it.  By using DNS Lookups, you can check to make sure Google’s mobile bot is accessing your site.  Verify this by looking for a user with a handle that is made up of something along the lines of Googlebot-Mobile.  Google does say they change their user agent names occasionally, so the name won’t match exactly, but you should be able to tell which one is Google’s mobile bot.
• Make sure that your mobile friendly addresses’ doc type definition is a mobile format like Compact HTML or XHTML Mobile.  Website owners who have both a traditional and a mobile site run the risk of the wrong site indexing in mobile search results if this distinction in coding language is not made.

There are also other things you can do to help make sure that the mobile version of your site is the one that is actually showing up in mobile search results.  For example, whenever a bot or search engine crawler that is specifically looking for mobile content goes over your traditional site, you can send a redirect to the crawler to send it over to the mobile site instead of the traditional site.  Each search engine recognizes the differences between a search conducted on a desktop computer and one that was done on a phone, so by showing it where to find mobile content, you help the search engine distinguish between your traditional site and your mobile site.

A lot of work goes into owning a website and keeping it up today, but too many website owners don’t even realize that they’ve got to run not just one site, but two.  Both sites may look the same and use the same keywords, but in order for your site to be indexed properly, you’ve got to show the bots what kind of site it is so that users will be able to find the right site at the right time.

Google is constantly looking for ways to improve their users’ experiences, and the way they do this is by changing the algorithms.  Of course owning a website and understanding exactly why your site appears (or doesn’t appear) in Google searches are often two different things.  With many website owners, you toss out words like “algorithms,” and their eyes start glazing over as their mind begins to wander.

Algorithms are the mathematical equations and codes that determine whose website appears where on Google’s search results when certain keywords are typed in.  In the past, the algorithm changes were largely about the text and content on the page, but as of January of this year, Google has begun weighing other features of websites more heavily when deciding where to rank sites in their search results.

According to webmasters at Google, they had been receiving many complaints from users about sites that made it too difficult to find the content they were looking for.  Users would say that sometimes when they clicked on a site with a description that really sounded like what they were looking for, they were unhappy because there were so many ads on the page that they could not find the information they were looking for.

Internet users don’t generally want to scroll down a page to look carefully for the content they want.  If they don’t see it right away, they’re going to click the back button and go to another site that makes it easier to find the information they are looking for.

The biggest culprit of users not being able to find content is advertising, and many website owners have ads that are, as Google terms them, “above the fold.”  This latest algorithm change by Google now penalizes websites that do not have a lot of content above the fold.  This means websites that don’t have much written content that’s visible on the page without scrolling when you click to it.

Of course it is quite common for some website owners to place advertisements above the fold, and it’s easy to see why.  Most people who own a website have monetized it, and the ads that make them the most money are usually those that are located on the page above the fold.  However, Google’s recent change is targeting those sites that have too many ads above the fold.  This means that sites which use their space wisely and have few ads above the fold should not be affected by the latest algorithm change.  It is certainly normal to have some ads above the fold, but all of your relevant content should be easily accessible without the user having to scroll to find what he or she is looking for.

Google does not believe that this latest update has changed search results drastically.  They believe that less than 1 percent of searches worldwide would be affected by this change.  Website owners who believe that their site has been affected by this recent algorithm change should take some time to look at their site’s overall layout.  They should look at how the space located above the fold on their website is used.  If the site’s real content is too hard to locate, then it probably is time for an adjustment to the layout.  Google has a browser size tool and other tools you can use to see how your website looks on other screen resolutions.  This is an important thing that is often overlooked by website owners.  It is too easy to get caught up on how the site looks on your own screen and forget that other people don’t have the same computer or monitor as you.  Many people don’t even use the same browser you use.  So these are all things to take into consideration when trying to determine precisely where the fold of your website falls.  If you do decide to change your page’s website, Google’s algorithm will automatically process the change and reorder search results accordingly when they crawl your site the next time.

Duplicate content, a.k.a. plagiarism, is never something you should tolerate on your own website.  In internet terminology Google defines, “duplicate content” as “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that other completely match content or are appreciably similar.”

It’s important to understand that duplicate content refers to pages that are exactly the same.  Even pages with quite a few similarities usually don’t cause alarm bells to go off with Google and the other search engines.  Avoiding duplicate content can be as simple as changing the order of the paragraphs around, but the most important thing to remember is that you don’t want a lot of duplicate content on your site because it will harm your search engine rankings.

Of course avoiding duplicate content is about more than just making sure that your website does not have articles and content copy and pasted from another site.  There are some forms of duplicate content that most website owners don’t even think about, such as:

• Discussion forums that have both a regular and a mobile version of the same site
• Pages with items for sale in your retail store that are linked with multiple distinct URLs
• Web pages that have printer-only versions of the same content on the page

When Google indexes pages, the filter will essentially choose one version of each page to list.  Sometimes the pros at Google will see that there is a lot of duplicate content within a search engine listing that was meant to take over the majority of traffic for a particular keyword.  The search engine then adjusts and lowers the rankings of sites that seem to be a copy of earlier sites.  Sometimes these sites are completely removed from the Google index so that they will never show up in search results.

Assuming you’re not just out to copy the work of others, here are some things you can do to protect your site’s search engine ranking:

• Canonicalization and site indexing – tell Google which version of your website or duplicate content you want included in the listings, whether it’s the printer-only version or the main page.  This can be done via the Google Webmaster Tools.
• 301 Redirects–You can redirect the search spiders and users to the right version of the page via .htaccess files or the administrative console.
• Consistency – Internal linking among your pages should be consistent rather than utilizing more than one version of the same page.
• Top-level domains – Make sure the URLs you use for your site have country specific extensions, like .uk for the United Kingdom or .ca for Canada, etc.
• Proper syndication – When syndicating your content on other sites, include a link back to the original article and ask those who use your article to use a no index meta tag so that their site won’t be indexed in the search engines.
• Cut down on boilerplate repetition – You don’t really need copyright information on each page.  Just link the copyright mention to a separate page that has complete information.
• Don’t publish pages until you have content for them – Publishing placeholder pages before they have content creates a lot of duplicate blank pages on your site.  If you must do this, use no-index meta tags to prevent web crawlers from indexing them.
• Adjust your content management system.  Remember that blog postings may appear in more than one place on your site, depending on how your content management system works.  You may be able to make adjustments to minimize this, thus reducing the amount of duplicate content.
• Combine pages that have similar information – If you have several pages with content that is similar, look at making those into one page instead of having separate pages with similar content.

You probably won’t be able to get around all of the issues relating to duplicate content, so for the pages you can’t do anything about, you can mark them in a way that lets the crawlers know they are duplicate content.  In the past, Google recommended blocking crawlers from actually finding the duplicate content, but this can be damaging because it causes the crawlers to treat them as separate pages.  Instead, use the rel=”canonical” link, a URL parameter handling tool, or 301 code redirects.  You can also use Webmaster Tools to change the crawl rate setting for your website.

If in spite of your efforts, your page is still removed from search engine rankings, read over the Webmaster Guidelines to find out exactly why.  Once you fix the problems, you can submit a request to have your site included in the rankings again.

Sometimes you may find that another site is actually copying your site in some way.  If this happens, it’s likely nothing to worry about with your search engine rankings.  However, if you do notice the duplicate content causing problems, a DMCA request will allow you to attempt to get that content removed by claiming that you own it.

Avasoft will take care of all your website needs and help you make sure that there’s no duplicate content lowering your search engine ranking.

When you enter a keyword on the search engine, the information someone sees when your site shows up in the search engine is called a snippet. A snippet is Google’s automatic creation of the titles and descriptions that are associated with your site.

Where does the snippet come from?

Google uses various features of your site to automatically create a title and description for each page on your site.  In addition to the content that’s actually on the page and other links to it on the internet, the search engines also use the meta tag’s information to help determine how to describe your web page.  For sites that don’t provide meta tag information, Google uses any information that’s available from the page content.

Of course having meta descriptions that accurately reflect what’s on your site can improve your click through rate. It creates a better experience for the user by allowing them to find what they are looking for much more easily.

Webmasters who are familiar with the traditional method for using slashes in URLs know that if there’s a slash on the end of it, usually it was a directory, while a URL without a slash on the end was typically a file.

For example: http://avasoft.net/aboutus/

Vs. http://avasoft.net/aboutus

However, this is no longer necessarily the case.  There’s no reason to keep doing it this way because Google treats them both exactly the same.

Don’t Confuse Your Users!

The biggest problem some webmasters face is when they make the two example links about lead to completely different information.  Visitors to your website don’t want to have to figure out what’s going on because most of them never knew such a distinction ever existed.

In order to avoid confusion, it’s best to make both URLs lead to the same content.  One of the URLs should be the actual page, and the other one should redirect to the main version of the page.  This cuts down on duplicate content within your site.  The less duplicate content you have on your site, the easier it is for the web crawlers to crawl it.

If your site already contains both the slash and the non-slash version of the URL and both have the same content, it’s not a huge problem though.  Google’s indexing process will figure it out.

Setting Up Your Website to Serve Just One Version

If you do decide that you want to change your website for more efficient crawling, then it’s pretty simple to do.  First, understand that it’s only necessary for a change if you have the slashed and the un-slashed version of each URL on your site and both are returning a 200 code, which basically means that they both deliver content successfully.

Here’s how to get rid of the duplicate content:

1. Decide whether the preferred version of the URLs is slashed or un-slashed on the end.  If you’re using a directory structure, the traditional way would be to use the slash on the end, but you don’t have to.
2. Make sure that your internal links all direct to the preferred version you chose.  Double check the sitemap to make sure it uses the preferred version only.
3. Implement a 301 redirect from the other version of the URL over to the preferred version.  If for some reason you can’t use a 301, consider instead using rel-“canonical”, which works just like a 301 in terms of Google’s indexing.
4. Use Fetch as Googlebot in Webmaster Tools to test the 301 configuration and make sure both versions of the URL are behaving the way you want them to.  The preferred version should send back a 200 code, while the duplicate should send back a 301 code to redirect to the preferred version.
5. Use Webmaster Tools to check for crawl errors.

Avasoft is your best source for business website design.  Give us a call for all of your webmaster questions and to get help organizing your site for best optimization.

When Google rolled out its Panda algorithm change, a number of other changes were also rolled out at the same time.  This resulted in business website owners frustrating on what solutions they should take to recover their ranks.  Google is constantly changing its ranking algorithm to improve search results for its users, but that doesn’t mean that every website owner has to be constantly analyzing these algorithms.  That would lead to madness!  Instead, Google recommends that website owners focus on the quality of their site rather than the algorithm that result in their search ranking.