Web Design, Internet Marketing, E-commerce, SEO Blog | Las Vegas, NV

Can I have more than one domain name for my website?

Most of my customers don’t realize that you CAN have multiple domain names pointing to one primary domain name. For example: If you own www.yourdomain.com as your primary website that houses all of your content, you could also own www.yourdomain-lasvegas.com as another domain name that points back to your main website. So, owning several domain names is never a bad thing. The most important thing to keep in mind though, is how you redirect the user to the primary domain. That is the key to search engine friendliness.

Domain Alias or a 301 Redirect?

In your hosting control panel, there is a place for you to set up a domain alias. NEVER USE A DOMAIN ALIAS. This is considered spamming the search engines because the domain name DUPLICATES the content on your primary domain and in turn, masks the domain name under the secondary domain. This is a very bad thing to do and you will get dropped in rankings very quickly by Google, Yahoo and other search engines. They feel you are trying to trick the engine when you use a domain alias. Why? Because what they see when they crawl an aliased domain is a website domain that has exactly the same content as the primary domain. So, if you have say…10 domain names all aliased to one domain name…the search engine sees 11 websites all with the same content. Hence, they think you are spamming them with duplicate content to trick the engine into giving you higher rankings.

So…what to do when you have multiple domain names?

Use a 301 Redirect. A 301 redirect tells the search engines that you have moved this domain permanently to a new domain name that you will specify. 301 redirects are search engine friendly redirects. Never use a 302 Redirect. 302 redirects are temporary redirects and are normally used by spammers.

So how do I set up a 301 redirect?

Considering, the domain name you are redirecting has never been hosted on any web server, buy a cheap hosting plan at netmouser.net domains and hosting (or any other hosting provider of your choice) for the domain you want to redirect. Then, you will need to upload a file called a .htaccess into the root of the html folder. This file will ‘direct’ the search engine crawler that you have permanently moved the domain name to a specific domain name.

How to create and setup a .htaccess file:

1. Check your current website ftp to make sure you don’t already have a .htaccess file already. (If you do not know how to do this, check your ftp program for instructions. I know in WS_FTP Pro, you can type -la into your file mask textbox and this will display if a .htaccess file exists.) If file exists, open it and go to #3 below. If not, go to #2 below.

2. Open Notepad or other text editor.

3. Copy and Paste this line into the Notepad file: (change the yourdomain.com to the your primary domain.)

redirect 301 / http://www.yourdomain.com/

4. Now save the file a .htaccess - make sure Notepad doesn’t add a .txt extension at the end.

5. Upload the .htaccess file to your website html root folder.

Now, anytime that domain is typed in by a website visitor it will permanently forward to your primary website. This is now considered a search engine friendly redirect.

When shopping for an SEO expert, you may want to ask what color hat the SEO company wears… a white hat or black hat?  I know this question seems extremely crazy, but there really is such a thing as a white hat seo or black hat seo technique.

What’s the difference between white hat or black hat SEO?

Simple.  White hat seo is the technique of optimizing your website for search engine indexing, without doing anything deceptive.  White hat seo experts use ethical methods to getting your site listed with search engines, and do not try to ‘trick’ the search engines for top rankings.

Black hat seo is a deceptive practice that normally use techniques that search engines feel are spamming or just downright tricky.  A black hat seo may be able to gain top rankings on keywords/phrases, but they are normally short lived as once the search engine finds out what they are doing, they can be banned from the search engine.

What types of techniques are considered black hat?

Hidden Text - This is a process of hiding text on a web page.  For example, one type of hidden text is placing white text on a white background.  The search engine sees the text as visible in the code, but the website browser does not.  The black hat seo is trying to trick the search engine into reading text that is not visible on the page for a real visitor just to enhance their rankings.

Keyword Stuffing - This is a process where keywords are literally ’stuffed’ onto a page with nothing else on the page.  For example, if I had a website for real estate, and all I had on the page was a bunch of keywords and no real content…this would be considered keyword stuffing.

Doorway Pages - Doorway pages are used to deceive the search engine because they are ‘fake’ pages that a user will never see.  They are normally filled with keyword stuffed content just to try to fake out the search engines.

Although black hat methods can work…they normally are temporary and once found out, are banned from search engines.  Don’t let these types of techniques tempt you into higher rankings.  A well thought out, content rich website with white hat seo techniques will far outlast the black hats.

This post is a continuation from our SEO series “What is SEO?”

Why do I need SEO?

SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, plays a vital role in getting your website listed on search engines. It can make the difference between people seeing your website just by searching for phrases on Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc… or whether you are so far hidden in these search engines that the only way to be seen is to pay for it.

SEO is a small phrase for a much larger purpose, but today I will try to write some helpful information in order for you to gain more insight on why this is a phrase to remember.

SEO Resources

If you browse the web and do a search for SEO you will come up with all kinds of articles, forums, seo training and tutorials, along with a wealth of promises by seo companies that guarantee you number 1 spots on all the top search engines. That being said, let’s examine some of the top ways in which you can insure your website is search engine ‘friendly’… and I truly mean friendly in the most ethical ways.

Common SEO Tips and Advice

• Guaranteed Number 1 Spot - I have had many clients over the years tell me they received a telephone call from a company claiming they can get them to be the number 1 search phrase on Google. They tell me that the company has reviewed their website and for a small fee (normally a few thousand dollars), they can get my client’s website listed number 1 on Google for any search phrase relating to their website.  Can this really be true? YES…you can be number 1 on Google or any search engine…IF YOU PAY FOR IT.

  It’s important to understand that natural/organic seo is a process that does not happen overnight.  And it is equally important to understand that it is not the ‘norm’ to be listed number 1 for EVERY search phrase that relates to your business.  Even the best SEO’s will have trouble with this.  When someone guarantees you the number 1 spot for every search phrase, this is absolutely too good to be true.  And the only way they would be able to follow through with this, is if you paid for it through a search engine marketing advertising campaign.

• Simple Website with Clean Coding - Search engines crawl the web looking for websites.  When they crawl your site, they look for copy to read on your website.  This copy will include Meta Data and Title Tags, content/copy on your site and navigational links.  When you build a website, there are key things a web company who understands SEO will suggest to keeping your site simple and search friendly.  For example, Flash should never be used entirely to create a website because flash code does not contain any real content value.  Since flash operates more as a program and not as plain HTML, the search engines do not really read these files.  (At least not yet anyway.)  However, that being said, Flash does have wonderful multimedia value and can add that little bit of creativity or artistic vision that just separates you from the rest.  When a customer is dead set on using Flash, I will make suggestions on what we can do to try to make the website as search engine friendly as possible, which may be creating a separate HTML website, along with specific programming things we can do to replace flash with HTML using javascript/css.
• Text Links versus Graphic Links - Text links are much more search engine friendly since they are exactly that…text.  The search engine can read them.  Graphic links, buttons or artsy-fartsy graphic navigational menus are not search engine friendly.  There are things a good seo can do to make them more seo friendly, but a good text link can make a HUGE difference on how well your site is ranked when indexed.
• Dynamic URL’s and Dynamic Content - It is a mistake to think that these two items are one in the same.  Dynamic URLs are web addresses with a question mark (?) in them, while dynamic content is normally content that is being pulled from another source, like a database or file.  Our ecommerce shopping cart uses the Apache server to rewrite dynamic URL’s to turn them into static URL’s.  These static URL’s normally get indexed better because a search engine is able to read these URL’s that are static and not constantly changing, as dynamic URL’s.  Dynamic content, if displayed as plain HTML or CSS, is also search engine friendly.
• Rich, Descriptive Copy - When you write the copy for your website, make it keyword rich and as descriptive as possible.  I always ask my clients this one thing that normally helps them to understand what I mean here.  The question is:  If I were on Google or Yahoo searching for your business…what search keywords or phrases would I type in to find you?  By them answering this simple question, it allows me to optimize their site with relevant keywords and descriptive copy that should help them in getting their site indexed and ranked higher in the search listings.

Are we SEO Gods?

There are many SEO companies that promise you the world.  At netMouser.com, you are given the facts about your site and how well it ranks as well as what we can do to get it to perform even better.  We don’t promise you the world, but we sure will work as hard as we can on making your site as visible as possible so that it is much more search engine friendly.  If you would like to set up an initial SEO evaluation, contact us.

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.  The purpose of Search Engine Optimization is to increase your website’s natural -or- organic listings (non-paid)  in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN / Windows Live Search, and other search sites.   This means developing your website to be search engine friendly, through development techniques and copywriting, along with coding your website with specific keywords, descriptions, etc… (META Data) that search engine spiders read when they comb through your website.

Over the next few weeks, we will talk about specific SEO techniques, best practices and other helpful information that will enhance your organic SEO results.

If you have a current website and are unsure if it is has been optimized for search, contact us for a low cost analysis.   All websites developed by netMouser.com have SEO built in to the initial website package.  We feel that you cannot develop a website the correct way without planning for SEO at the beginning of development.

Hello and welcome to the first posting on netMouser’s Las Vegas internet marketing and web development blog. I’ve been meaning to start this blog for a long time, but somehow I always managed to get too busy and put it off. Well, no more! With the new year, comes new year resolutions, and I am happy to say that this blog is one of my resolutions I intend to keep!

First off, let me tell you why I wanted to start my new blog and what this blog will be about. In a nutshell, this blog is about web design related questions, web development techniques, industry news, internet marketing, seo / search engine optimization, e-commerce, online shopping, statistical information, email marketing and a whole lot more! It seems like a pretty large undertaking, but all in all, it’s really about a few simple principles.

INFORMATION! I want to help our customers (and new visitors to our website) understand more about the internet and all it has to offer. Everyday I get questions from my customers who want to know something about internet marketing, web site design, e-commerce and other internet related information. This blog will be a great way to address those questions on a daily basis!

LAS VEGAS LOCAL COVERAGE! Since we are local to Las Vegas, it is my intent to also introduce you to new local marketing strategies that can benefit your business. This great community in Las Vegas is growing at a fast pace and I want to help weed out some of the best ways to take advantage of local advertising on the web.

COMMUNICATION! I want all of our customers and new visitors form all over the world to feel free to communicate, ask questions and dig into the internet the way I do. Don’t be afraid…if you have a question…ASK! That is the only way you and others like you can learn and understand. Use this blog as a tool and fuel your website to higher profits.

Now that you can imagine all that this blog will have to offer, please feel free to email me your questions or call me. I will be happy to add a certain topic or question to our blog so that our entire netmouser community can benefit, grow and learn all there is learn from this ever changing, most exciting world wide web.