SEO Is Still Dead
Over a year ago I did a post titled SEO is Dead: Check Out KP Baby it was mainly about the lack of on site SEO.
Dave always says that there’s 3 types of SEO
Technical SEO : This is where, for example, you make sure that your non www. properly redirects to the www. version or vice versa, and that your server and domain is set up well.
On-Site SEO : Making sure you are using your meta tags, <H> tags etc correctly and that all the coding is the best it can be.
Off-Site SEO : Everything to do with link profiles and that theres no negativity to reputation.
So recently I got a flyer in my shopping bag at my local Home Bargains store, which said I could now shop on line. Everything is fine for the normal shopper, but if you’re an SEO and you start taking a deeper look into the site then things don’t look as shiny. Why can’t people in this industry just use a website as it was meant to be used without looking at the source code 
Technical SEO
Both the non www. and the www. address’s both load, http://homebargains.co.uk/default.aspx and http://www.homebargains.co.uk/default.aspx
The none www. address isn’t indexed but a wrong link from somewhere and then your going to have 2 versions of your site indexed.
Personally the default.aspx makes the address look ugly and the fact its not 1996, means we have ways and means of redirecting default.aspx straight to the root domain.
Change default.aspx to test.aspx and you get a really fancy 404 Error Page.
Surely a nicer themed 404 Page within the design of www.homebargains.co.uk would look a lot better and more than likely keep people on the site.
At least your Robots.txt file has a load of stuff in you don’t want indexed, but since most of the pages return a 404 then you could remove these pages via Google Webmaster Tools and in turn reduce the size of your Robots.txt file.
On-Site SEO
You could have made a bit more effort with your Title Tag rather than just leaving it as “Home Bargains”
On the home page there are no H1′s or H2′s, but there is a <h3>Welcome to Home Bargains</h3> surely this would be better as the <H1> Tag, and it’s the same story for product pages which have no <H> Tags at all. So the only <H> Tags on the site are <H3>’s.
Images aren’t given the product name they get 0001886_300.jpeg so although this product appears in Google Images searches for more competitive items you might find that the Home Bargains Images are lower down, so ideally naming your image’s is good house keeping so hoover_whirlwind_tcw_2010_pets.jpeg would be a better option.
Also its good to see people using Google Analytics or a form of tracking, but you only need to put the code in your page once!
Off-Site SEO
Heres a slightly tricky one TJ Morris are actually trading as Home Bargains, so TJ Morris are taking up the top 3 positions followed by a bunch of Places listing and finally you then get www.homebargains.co.uk. I’m sure in time that www.homebargains.co.uk will take the top position but if you wanted this speeding up then try de optimising www.tjmorris.co.uk for the term Home Bargains.
There’s likely to be lots of bits I’ve missed that are more or less important as this is obviously not a full detailed review, but its a insight that people are still getting SEO wrong.
Jim 644 days ago
You sound sort of on track in terms of content, but your grammar is unbearable. It’s impossible to take you seriously when you sound 14 years old. If you’re going to be publishing written content for the world to see, lurn to spel.
For example
- address’s should be addresses
- image’s should be images
- “your going to have” should be “you’re going to have”
- “its good to see” should be “it’s good to see”
- this post is overflowing with grammatical, spelling, and other errors
Nitpicking? Nope, not when you are supposed to be a web professional.
I’m sure you’ll delete this comment, but get some education for your own sake.
David Whitehouse 633 days ago
Jim I don’t think anyone knew what to put in reply to your miserable comment – but we approved it (after a while of debating over whether to or not).
Feel free to let us know if you own a website so we can go through it with a fine toothcombe checking for spelling and grammatical errors! If you do SEO we’ll try and pick you up on those errors too
Alex Graves 633 days ago
http://www.footballinsight.orgJim…
Me no see you're point....Lets be honest, the comment that you placed was not designed to be helpful in any way towards the thread, simply just something to give you five minutes of enjoyment while looking for something to do with your time.
Have to say that with such strong opinions and desire to have a 100% complete site in action, i’m surprised that you have not placed your site into the URL field… Or not…
Take the information at the value in which you believe it to hold and if you are not happy with it, discard and move on.
SEO - Bod 644 days ago
http://www.seo-bod.co.ukNot meaning to come across as derogatory but I would class your 3 terms as SEO and apply each to 1 SEO campaign. Anyone doing it differently is not doing SEO to its full potential in my opinion.
David Whitehouse 644 days ago
I think you got the wrong end of the stick, he was just talking about three different areas of SEO. You can be a good link builder, but it doesn’t mean you can do highly skilled technical SEO.
Alex Graves 644 days ago
I think that sometimes people forget that there are a diverse bunch of readers of this blog, including some of those that are still trying to learn the basics.
Rory has not said that the 3 types of SEO are to be conducted as individual aspects, instead it seems that he failed to indicate that together they forge the basis of a firm SEO campaign.
To say that anyone not working in line with all the types that have been highlighted is in your mind someone who is not working to the best of their SEO ability is a little short sighted as i’m sure that you will have had clients that are only looking for a certain aspect to boost their own efforts, meaning that you only have the control of one area.
SEO is an industry in which there are huge margins and shaded areas in which people must pass through in order to learn and develop, there is no definitive way in which the process should be done, if there was then we would all be stuck!
SEO Bod 643 days ago
http://www.seo-bod.co.ukYes Alex, and diverse readers will result in diverse opinions. I don’t think it makes me short sighted to voice my’n. It’s true what you say afterwards as SEO depends so much on external factors that to apply SEO in its entirety to anyone project is short sighted.
And James, SEO could be broken into many parts and should be to enable people to learn.
The industry has begun to fragment hence link building companies sprouting up etc. All aspects do make up the whole and done together generally lead to success.
robert frische 644 days ago
http://www.creation-marketing.co.ukGood grammar is one of the first fundamentals of SEO and yours is bad….
SEO Bod 636 days ago
http://www.seo-bod.co.ukI like this blog, website and what you do.
SEO is made up of many fundamentals. Being the entire whole is hardwork and requires dedication, patience and time etc. Doing it well relies on external factors that even the best SEO can’t counteract against, always.
*heads off to ‘SEO’ Google alerts*
*reads a book on grammar!*
David Whitehouse 633 days ago
I totally disagree with you there Robert – Dave Naylor is probably the worst speller I know, yet he’s also probably one of the most successful and well respected SEO’s in the World.
James Pennington 644 days ago
http://Www.p-tech.org.ukGood article – I like the split into threes to show the need to address all three in order to have a complete strategy. It always amazes me when you look at someone’s website you tell them that there’s an issue with the www and non-www version. They then go to their web company who tell them that’s not an issue and there paying for SEO services. Why can’t SEO companies learnt he basics when it comes to building websites that are good and fit for purpose….
Charlie 640 days ago
http://www.shoutingloud.co.ukI also split it into three but I refer to:
Technical SEO
Off site SEO
and Keyword usage / content optimisation.
Tekster Byskov 640 days ago
http://Seo-Tekster.dkI always get annoyed when the url’s doesnt make any sense, its actually really annoys me, so i have to agree with your point – eventhough i dont go as deep as looking through the code, at most times at least
Ben 637 days ago
http://jasonfladlienproductsonline.comGood conversation. The more I read about SEO, the more I realize I don’t know. It seems to me there are three kinds of people in internet marketing. The first group knows nothing and buys crappy info from the second group, who knows enough to create a garbage info product or system to get the first group to the first page of Google. (which seldom works) The third group actually knows the details of real SEO, but argue semantics with each other about who does it right. I hope to get to the third group and join the fray. lol
jezza101 633 days ago
http://www.jezza101.co.ukThe thing that strikes me is that there doesn’t seem to be all that much to it. I see people seem concerned that they don’t know enough about all this but there doesn’t seem all that much to know?
Tag up the page right, that’s a one page check list.
Techy stuff, OK that’s a bit harder, but a modern CMS can (or should) do most of this.
Off site – get links from good sites.
I think the actual problem is taking the time to make sure these things actually get done. Businesses often prioritise key functionality over SEO basics, which makes sense becuase if eg your shop checkout doesn’t work then having great search engine ranking is meaningless!
All the key stuff is in Google’s SEO pdf guide, and “advanced” stuff is so unmeasurable that no one knows for sure if it makes a difference. Follow the golden rule, make a good site that people will like and people will build links naturally, share with their friends, and you future proof against google updates.
David Whitehouse 633 days ago
Jezza, most websites don’t get the basics right, including big well known brands – and many people, although they read about SEO, still get the basics wrong. The biggest of these probably being duplicate content imo.
Ack 619 days ago
Spelling mistakes and grammar errors are OK – not proofing your work is not OK. Just give it a quick read before you publish
While Jim’s message may be a bit harsh, there’s a lot of truth there. Your message will be received better and you will have a more professional image, guaranteed.
seo mauritius 605 days ago
http://www.mauseo.com/the on site seo is dead because most of the web designer don’t even know what seo mean and not talking about the onsite they are still using tables to place the images and text instead of using css how can you expect them to generate a meta tag or they don’t even know why it’s important to create an XML sitemap and an HTML sitemap. I personally think that very web designer should have the basic of SEO before starting a website development.