This week I’d like to talk to you about a great new feature being introduced to Wix. Many of you have used Wix to create a Flash website for your business or non-profit organization and this could be particularly interesting for you.

So first things first:

• Wix is introducing a new deep linking feature. This will enable you to send links directly to the inner pages of your website. For those of you who are still confused consider what has been happening with your website until now. Anyone who enters your website is automatically redirected to your homepage.  With the new deep linking feature, you can send visitors to a specific page, leading to a better promotion of inner pages. For example, suppose you have a pretty large photography website, and you’ve met a potential client. You have a specific picture you think will be perfect for him. Instead of sending him to your website with a list of explanations on how to reach the exact picture, gambling that this potential client has the patience and determination to actually reach this page, you can send him (or her) directly to the photo or gallery page you want. Good idea right?

At this point, this feature will only work on regular pages (as opposed to mini-pages).

• Getting Inner Pages Crawled. This part of this post is in direct response to recurring queries that have been sent to our support department. Some have noticed that Google will index your inner pages and they will appear as additional results to search queries underneath the homepage result. In some cases, when you change your website’s description you will see that it has been updated in the main result, while these inner pages are still accompanied by the old and outdated description.

This happens in cases where your homepage is crawled and your inner page is not. To see this, visit the cached view of your inner page and compare the date that appears in the header at the top of your page with the one listed for your homepage.

To see the cached view either click the ‘cache’ link which appears alongside your website’s URL in the Google search results, or enter the following search:

Cache:http://www.domainname.com

The solution for this is simple. You must wait until your inner page is crawled and you can hasten this process using the same techniques you used to get your Flash website crawled. You are welcome to browse other posts that appear in this blog for more tips.

One last thing – many of you have been sending different support questions through the comments option. The bad news is that I can’t answer all these support questions through this blog. The good news is that you can easily get an answer through the Wix support. That’s where you can get answers to any technical or even non-technical question you have!

Good Luck!

Rumors have been a buzzing across the web that Google is about to introduce a new algorithm that will affect anyone who deals with SEO, SEM (search engine marketing) and web design.

This new algorithm is being called Google Caffeine and it will be launched some time after the holidays. So what is it? Matt Cutts calls it “…the new technology that improves our indexing infrastructure.”

Here are the categories in which tweaks and changes have been made. In some categories the changes are more dramatic than others, but in all cases the changes are constructed over Google’s basic line of thought – what’s good for you is good for Google and what’s good for Google is good for your users and business as well.

1. Content is Still King

Good news optimizers, content is still king. More to the point, relevant content is still king. Your website’s content should relate to your main message, to your products or your services. You’ll find irrelevant content to be much less effective. Also, an easily indexed website will get higher ranking than a website the Google bot finds hard to crawl. For this reason you should refrain from using a shotgun approach. Adding original content, or presenting your content in an original way is recommend and is also a good way of promoting your website for search engines. Sites that are indexed well lead to accurate search results. Accurate search results improve the service Google can provide its users and in turn improves business. You can apply the same logical train of thought to your customers and/or target market.

2. Meta Tags

Titles and descriptions continue to be critical elements in the indexing process. It’s in your best interest as well as Google’s to provide accurate descriptions to your web pages. While Google will only display up to about 155 characters in its search result and will only crawl about 200 characters, it’s also important not to leave your description too short. I’ve seen many cases in which the user’s description was so short, Google bots decided to use alternative texts instead. The website builders were then surprised to discover irrelevant texts or texts they hadn’t planned on using as descriptions spearheading their search results.

3. Website Loading Time

While I haven’t mentioned this criteria before it is based on the same principles as the rest of Google indexing doctrine. If your website takes a long time to load, its reasonable enough to assume that this will frustrate a certain percentage of users who will then leave the site by backtracking or by giving up on the search altogether. This affects the site’s usability and therefore also the website’s ranking in Google. So next time you upload pictures with the wix website builder, make sure they aren’t heavy, large sized images that will make it really hard for the page to load.

4. Refreshing Content

The new caffeine algorithm is expected to give greater weight to websites that are being constantly refreshed and updated with new content. This means that websites that have not been touched for a while will lose their ranking. This is a logical progression as it stands to reason that if a website has not been updated for a while, it has either been abandoned or has become outdated and therefore lost relevancy. Once again Google proves, that what is good for Google is good for you.

5. Quality Linking

Anybody who deals with SEO knows there are high quality links and low quality links and everything in the middle. If this is the first time you’re hearing this I recommend that you read a few of the earlier posts in this blog on links. From now on, quality links will not be the only factor. This means that even if you have a link to your website from a great site with a fantastic page rank, unless the content of your site is relevant to the source site and unless the link is organic, or a so called ‘natural link’, it will have less importance in determining your ranking and indexing. The same goes for outgoing links. If you send a link out to a great website with a high page rank, make sure that website is relevant to yours, otherwise you’re simply wasting potent linking juice.

Well that’s it for today folks. I guess all we can do is stay put and wait expectantly for the new caffeine algorithm to kick in so we can all have some fun!

So what have you already learned about SEO? Think you’ve figured it out? Here are a few questions that’ll help give you an idea of how much information you still have to learn, and how much SEO you already know. You can take the entire test at the seomoz website.

1. Where is it LEAST important to include keywords?

1. title
2. body text
3. Meta Keywords
4. Headers

2. What is the best way to maximize the frequency with which your website/web page is crawled by he search engines?

1. Insert a “crawl delay” parameter into the robots.txt file.
2. Submit your site directly to the search engines through submission forms
3. Visit Google’s Webmaster Central and increase your “crawl frequency”
4. Search for your website more frequently in the major search engines
5. Add new content frequently

3. How can description Meta tags help with the search engine optimization?

1. This is a trick question! – Meta descriptions are not important
2. They’re an important ranking factor in search algorithms
3. They’re the texts that entice searchers to choose and click your listing
4. They help inform search engines which keywords are most important on your page

4. Which of these sources is considered the best source for competitive link data?

1. Ask.com
2. MSN
3. Alexa
4. Google
5. Yahoo

5. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

1. There is no difference, they are synonymous
2. SEO refers to organic/natural listings while SEM deals with PPC or paid searches
3. SEM implies association with traditional marketing companies, while SEO is usually independent or uaffiliated with traditional marketing
4. SEO focuses on organic/natural search ranking, SEM encompasses all aspects of search marketing
5. SEO is what they call SEM on the West coast

6. Which of the following is NOT considered to be a highly important factor in ranking a particular search term?

1. Temporal relevancy – the number and quality of links pointing at a certain page over a given time
2. An HTML validation (according to W3C standards) of a page
3. The quality and quantity of all external links to the page
4. The link popularity of a specific page within the domain
5. Keyword usage in the title tag of the page

7. When creating “flat architecture” for a site, what are you attempting to minimize?

1. The KB size/weight of pages targeting search engines
2. The total amount of scrolling necessary for the website’s navigation
3. Colors used in the design
4. The number of tabs/windows that open during normal navigation
5. How many links a search engine must go though in order to reach content pages

8. Which of the following is NOT the best method for creating quality title tags?

1. Writing great copy that encourages users to “click” on your listing
2. Making sure each page has a unique title
3. Including an exhaustive list of keywords
4. Limiting the title tag to about 65 characters, including spaces

9. Which character limitation is the best in regards to the title tags (assuming you want your title tag to be fully displayed in search engines)?

1. 108
2. 20
3. 65
4. 45
5. 85

10. The ‘PageRank’ was dubbed just so because it was created by Larry Page and not because it happens to rank pages.

1. False
2. True

11. Creating a ’sitemap’ with links to other pages in your domain is important because…

1. Most web users outside theUS prefer this navigational method
2. It can help search engine crawlers access many pages on your website easily
3. A site map reduces the rate at which spiders crawl your pages
4. It’s a mandatory requirement for submission to most of the important search engines

12. Why are absolute (http://www.mysite.com/my-category) URLs better than relative (”/my-category”) URLs for on-page internal linking?

1. Absolute URLs provide a link back to the original website after they are scraped and copied onto other domains
2. They provide more keyword context for search engines
3. These URLs provide greater keyword weight
4. Absolute URLs are filled with vodka – duh!
5. Search engines can’t crawl relative URLs

13. How should you avoid duplicate content issues that are often present in temporal pagination issues (where content moves from page to page, as can be seen in article lists, multi-page articles and blogs)?

1. Use a Meta robot “noindex, follow” tag to the paginated pages
2. Each page should be displayed in a new tab/window
3. Link the paginated pages with a rel=”nofollow” in the link tag
4. Pagination does not have any duplicate content problems associated with it

14. What should you do with old URLs after updating your site’s URL structure to build new versions of your pages?

1. Nothing
2. Move the old links to a sub-domain
3. Create 404 landing pages for the old URLs so search engines & visitors understand that the content is no longer there
4. Use a 301 to redirect them to the new URLs
5. Request their removal via webmaster central and site explorer in Yahoo!

15. When multiple pages on your website are targeting the same keywords, which is the best way to avoid keyword cannibalization?

1. Restrict search engines from crawling/indexing less important pages
2. Remove duplicate keywords from the Meta keywords tag on secondary pages
3. Add links on all the secondary pages directing back to the page you want ranked for the term/phrase, using primary keywords as anchor texts
4. Increase keyword density on the main page and make sure its denser than that of the other pages

Did better than you thought? Not as good?

Here are a few good SEO websites/blogs you might enjoy reading for more information:

• Matt Cutts has been working for Google since 2000. His blog is an easy read and always a great place to find updates on Google.
• The SEOBOOK is also a good read with handy information and links to a good training center.
• Another place to read up on SEO tricks and tools is SEOCHAT.
• One of the best places to get updates is search engine land.

Answers: [1=4] [2=5] [3=3] [4=5] [5=4] [6=2] [7=5] [8=3] [9=3] [10=2] [11=2] [12=1] [13=1] [14=4] [15=3]

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I want to use this post to address a prevalent misconception. Many people, as they begin to optimize their website, tend to perceive this process as somewhat contradictory with the rest of the work they’ve put in with the product and potential users in mind. In fact, the work they invest in their website is divided between work optimizing for users and work optimizing for Google – when in fact these two are almost one and the same.

Google and you have the same agenda

Google wants to know what your website is about – so do we. Think of your new free Flash website as a well written essay. You’d have to ask yourself first what the essay is about and if you can’t summarize this concept in a sentence, you aren’t doing your job well. What is your website about? Is it about selling t-shirts? Is it a business website for a dentist’s office? Is it your band’s fan page? Make sure this message is clear and comes across fast. There were over 183 million websites on the internet as of early 2009 and this number just keeps growing. If a visitor reaches your website and doesn’t know what it’s about he has no reason to stay. It takes a lot less time to click your mouse than it does to walk out of a store.

Google has the same agenda. It wants to be able to give the best search results and this depends very much on how you present your website. It uses algorithms that are meant to discover your website’s purpose and subject. That’s why it reads the titles and gives them precedence over other types of texts. That’s why the description is so important. That’s why it crawls the links leading to your website to understand what subjects are relevant to your website. If you’re website’s message is clear to Google, it will most likely be clear to an actual human visitor.

Define your website’s message clearly

Many people have searched and found ways to outmaneuver Google’s algorithms and get their website listed on the first page. However, Google continuously updates its algorithms and these websites don’t last very long. Spamming is basically a waste of time at the end of the day. You aren’t serving your users/visitors by offering them shitty content, and you aren’t going to get very far with Google either. Playing the game however, may be a little harder and more complex, but it will improve the quality of your website and get you the right kind of traffic.

So make sure you define your message clearly. Notice our header: ‘Learn. Optimize. Get Your Wix Ranked’. Bing.  You know exactly what this blog is about. So does Google.

Are you being Google friendly?

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Site maps can benefit the optimization of a website by ensuring that all of your website’s  pages can be found.There are two types of site maps. One is a sitemap you can create for your website’s users if you have many pages and you want to make your website’s navigation user-friendly. The second is an xml sitemap, and is dedicated wholly to the search engines and getting them to index each page on your website.

Site Map for Visitors

Suppose you’ve just built a Flash website with Wix and you have 20 different pages. Even if you’ve built a great system of navigation, it’s more than likely that several of your pages are harder to get to. To make the visit to your website easier on your user you can manually create a dedicated sitemap page. This is particularly useful if your website is dynamic and growing. A good sitemap saves your visitors a lot of headache and keeps your site organized.

Site Map for Search Engines

The second type of sitemap is an xml sitemap. XML is a markup language, a textual data format often used to store information, specifically for usability over the internet. The xml sitemap is specifically for search engine crawlers. It lists URLS for your website as well as additional metadata information about each URL such as the most recent update, the frequency of page changes; its importance in relation to other URL’s listed for your website, etc. XML sitemaps are simply a great way for webmasters to let search engines know what’s going on in their site.  It is not used or viewed by visitors to your website. When you create a free website with Wix, your website pages are automatically updated and included in the Wix xml sitemap. This is done to ensure that Google will index all the pages of your website.

When you create a premium website with your own URL, a dedicated xml sitemap is created on your behalf. You can see this xml by entering your domain + /sitemap.xml.

Example:

http://www.eventsbysandj.com/sitemap.xml

What will appear looks like the following image:

As you can see, it’s not really meant for users, but it’s good to know what it looks like anyhow.

Remember, using a site map doesn’t guarantee that all your website pages are indexed by Google. What it does is pinpoint their location to the web crawlers, significantly increasing the chances your website will be indexed properly.

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Its official, Yahoo is no longer using keywords for ranking purposes either.

A few weeks ago Google came out with an official announcement stating that it does not use the keyword Meta tag to rank websites. According to Google, this has been the case for a very long time, as a result of the excessive spamming of this particular Meta tag.

Now Yahoo has just announced the same during the Ask The Search Engines: Best Practices Edition at the SMX East conference. Later during a Q&A session with Cris Pierry, Senior Director of Search, Yahoo also noted that Yahoo no longer refers to the Meta keyword for its rankings and that in fact, Yahoo has not been using it for several months.

Just to clarify matters, this does not affect keywords in general, but only the keyword Meta tag. This is the tag you fill in when you enter the settings menu (from the top of the Wix editor) and fill in up to ten keywords with comas separating them. This Meta is also still relevant if you use different paid search applications, both by Yahoo and Google. In any case, as you optimize your website, it’s quite useful to write down your keywords before you write them into your description Meta tag (still very important) and title Meta tag (also crucial) along with the rest of the texts in your site.

Many of you have been asking good questions about the code of your Wix Flash website, so I would like to take this opportunity to begin providing some information on the subject.

Right Click for the Source. In order to see the code of your website you simply need to right click your mouse and choose the command ‘view source’. If you’re trying to do so but can’t find the ‘view source’ command this is because you are hovering over a Flash element, and the right click is giving you options relevant to Flash. Simply move your mouse over to the perimeters of your website and try again.

The code of any website, Flash, Wix or otherwise, will appear in tags. The tags begin with a rectangular bracket and end with another closing bracket. The area in between contains all the information regarding that specific command or sequence. The three main Meta tags will normally appear at the top of the source page. If you can’t see them, search (Ctrl + F) for the word ‘description’ or ‘title’ and you’ll find it soon enough.

Using Headers. Headers appear in the source code with the letter H symbolizing them. Usually, a website will have several headers, and they will be numbered according to their rank. This means that you can have an H1, H2, H3 etc. Google and the other search engine crawlers use headers as part of their indexing process. They will also prioritize the importance of the header depending on its number. In your Wix website headers are created using the Title tool in the editor. They are automatically arranged in order of importance depending on the size of the font.

Another cool tip regarding headers has to do with the page name. In the Wix website builder you have the option of changing the names of your pages. These will appear as headers inside your website’s source code. If you decide not to give them unique names they will be automatically identified as ‘Page 1’, ‘Page 2’ etc.

Google Update. The Google crawler uses many different parameters to rank a website. The meta tags and headers are one of those parameters but keyword meta tags are not one of those. In a recent post in their official Google webmaster blog they confirmed that they have not been using the keyword Meta tag for ranking purposes for some time. This is due to severe spamming of the keyword meta tag. Google has a Google Search Appliance that is capable of matching meta tags and will use the keyword meta tag for this purpose, but this is NOT related to the main web search.

Still, Google is only one search engine, so I recommend you continue to update relevant keywords into your website.

Stay tuned for the next installment of source code information. Have a good day.

They say wise men consider their words carefully. This rings true in our case as well. I’d go so far as to say that you should do more than consider your words, you should research them. Sounds easy? Well, in fact it is. Find out how to work with Google and help give your site ranking a bump in the right direction, using relevant terms of course. Let’s break it down into a few simple steps.

First of all, let’s say you have a supermarket website and you want surfers to know that you sell the best bananas in town. Check out Google’s freebie Search Engine tool, Adwords , to find out what good keywords should be interweaved into your site texts. Type bananas for example, and you may discover that other good keywords include ‘green bananas’ and ‘ripe bananas’ for example.

Web Page Settings

Title and Description in Google Search Results

Another place you can look is the Google search itself. Type in your keyword and find out how many other sites are already listed under this keyword as well as keyword ideas at the bottom of the page.

So now we get to the point.
The first thing Google really loves is a good title. Titles should be short and precise. Google will display up to 66 characters and crop the last word before this total is exceeded. Yahoo allows for up to 120 characters. If you want to be really smart, why don’t you create a primary title with a secondary supplement so that you can take advantage of both search engines? The title is one of the most important elements which the search engine crawls to determine how to index the site. Make sure you use at least one of your primary keywords here. To enter a title visit the document settings in Wix’s Flash website builder as can be seen in the picture. The website title will appear at the top of the web page as well as in search engine results.

The second thing Google absolutely loves is a good description. Try to be savvy in the way you build your sentences to include as many keywords as possible, and perhaps even repeat a primary keyword that is important to you, while creating a logical and eye catching sentence. This is the text that appears under the title in search engine results. Another factor to consider is its length. It should not be longer than 200 characters. You can write more, but no one will ever see it.

The third thing Google wants is a lot of texts. The texts on your page make the keywords you listed in you Meta tags (no more than seven) relevant. Optimizing your text is one of the more important steps in helping your website achieve a higher ranking in the Search Engines. Your web page should include plenty of text and should contain each of the keywords and keyword phrases you listed in the Meta tags, used in different variations and different locations on the page. If the keywords and keyword phrases you listed in your Meta tags don’t exist inside the text body of your website, they will simply be ignored by the Search Engines.

Each of your keywords and keyword phrases should appear at least three times within your text, but not more than seven, Google and other search engines recognizes spamming when it sees it.
Last but definitely not least, Google is head over heels for headers. A header appears in the Meta text as H1, or H2 and so on and so forth. However, to insert a header you need to use the title tool in the Wix Flash website editor. This is the difference between paragraph blocks and title blocks which you use to insert texts into the actual web page. If you have a title, you can insert it into your website either using the paragraph’s option or the title option, but why would you waste a good opportunity to strengthen your keywords?

Wix Editor Title Tool

That’s it for today. Get creative; it’s basically you against the machine and I’m sure you can find a way to outsmart it.
Remember!! It takes a few weeks for Google to index your page and the same goes for any changes you make, so don’t expect you ranking to change overnight.

You can also always visit Wix’s support to get some more information on how to optimize your Wix website.

This is just the very basic beginning of the journey we’re about to embark on as we explore different facets of Search Engine Optimization. So start researching keywords and lets meet again next week to discuss a few of the other ideas and possibilities open before you.

Have a good one!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…