Web Development Archive

So you have a website.  And your hosting company has automatically registered your website with 348 search engines globally.  Wow!  That’s a lot of search engines.  The only problem is there is virtually no value in registering your website with 348 search engines when 95% of the traffic come from 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft).

Unless you are registering for a niche search engine that’s tailored to your audience, then it’s kind of a waste.

For most websites that are trying to get the most out of search engine registration, there is a simple free tool that provides more than just registration – it provides keyword search information – for your website.

Search engines have evolved quite a bit in the last 4 years by introducing various Webmaster Registration Accounts that allow website owners to register and verify their sites with search engines.  You tell them you own the site , they ask you to prove it by uploading a unique verification code, then presto! they provide you with a list of keywords that results in visits to your site and ways to improve your ranking… for free.

Search engines open the door and provide these free optimization tools (and search information) to webmasters in the hopes that the savvy ones will use that information to optimize and tweak their websites.  That means a better user experience for everyone.  The benefit to search engines is that they can better index your website content, and the benefit to you is that more qualified visitors will be able to get to your website.

If you are looking to begin registering your website with the various search engines, I recommend you begin with Google Webmaster Tools.  Google’s tool has been around the longest and thus been developed a bit more thoroughly than Microsoft’s Webmaster Center or Yahoo! Site Explorer.  It’s worthwhile to register for all three, though, as they are continually improving their tools.

Recently, it’s become tremendously easy to install and make automatic upgrades your blog using WordPress (thanks Keith!) and I actually use it for all of my clients who are trying to build their first blog or simple content site on the web.

Because WordPress is easy to install and navigate (and there are a number of free themes to get you started), I highly recommend that anyone with a good amount of HTML experience give it a whirl.  If you don’t have HTML experience but are a small business owner or potential blogger - let me know.

Of course, my Top 5 WordPress Plugins all rotate around good Search Engine Optimization practices and improving the user experience so that both the blog visitor and the blog owner get more value from the website experience.

#1 All in One SEO Pack

Anyone who is anyone will have the plugin on their top plugins list.  It’s a great WordPress Optimization for Search that naturally helps catalog and effectively organize your webpages for search engines.

Search top plugins for WordPress and you’ll see how popular this one is.  (In fact, you’re probably already searching for good plugins).  It’s amazing to me that WordPress hasn’t bundled this plugin with the initial download so it automatically adds ability to create unique title tags and descriptive URLs.  The plugin works so nicely and provides a measurable, noticeable difference when it comes to being found via the search engines.

#2 Permalink Redirect

You never want to loose link equity if you don’t have to.  Whenever you move pages around your site and change the url you are inadvertently uprooting a valuable investment and giving it away.

If you ever need to rename a post or change a link, this great WordPress redirect plugin automatically creates a 301 redirect so that you can safely maintain all of the value through your link building and SEO efforts.  Without it, your visitors could be linking to broken content and you will be throwing away valuable link equity unnecessarily – and who wants to do that?

Broken Link - 404 File Not Found - Browser Error - Dead Link

#3 Google XML Sitemaps

If you want to give your site a little Search Engine kick, get this quick and simple WordPress XML Sitemap Optimization Plugin to help Google keep tabs on your valuable content.

This XML Sitemap file will be updated every time you post and give search engines a single place to look for new content.  Once you’ve enabled this plugin you want to make sure you register your sitemap with all the search engines using their various webmaster registration tools  so that when they crawl, they can utilize your XML sitemap for new indexable content.

1. Google Webmaster Tools
2. Yahoo! Site Explorer
3. Live Webmaster Center

The nice part of this plugin is that it gives WordPress the power to auto-generate or you as the user can manually set your post’s individual value.

#4 WordPress Database Backup

In general, having a great back up can save you from unfortunately loosing your data.  I recommend this sturdy WordPress Database Backup Plugin as a simple way to quickly and effectively create backup files so that you can restore your blog in the event that you loose your site goes sour.

If order to get the best out of the plugin, make sure to backup your data regularly.  At this point, it’s a manual process but I’m hoping they come out with an automatic backup shortly.

#5 AdSense Manager

If you decide to sell advertising with Google AdSense, this plugin works great.  There’s nothing too flashy and although there’s nothing tremendously amazing about this WordPress AdSense Manager - you can do most things via the plugin when directly in Google’s AdSense Manager.

Google AdSense

But it provides a quick way of adding ad blocks to your website through the Appearence > Widgets menu.  Also, having all the AdSense Manager options available within the WordPress tool can help save time when making a quick ad change.

Bonus: Setup Feedburner!

This isn’t neccesarrily a plugin, but I thought it would be good to include, as setting up a feedburner feed gives your audience the option of quickly and easily staying up-to-date on your posts without having to manually visit your website everyday.

Obviously, more tech-savvy folks use RSS feeds to keep track of all of their favorite blogs but I regularly come across surfers who haven’t yet grasped the RSS revolution and would rather stay updated through regular emails – which can be done for free with Feedburner’s Email Syndication.  There’s also plenty of other tools from Feedburner to help grow your visitor traffic.

Note: If you are using an analytics tool to track visitors, adding an email feed will lead to an immediate drop in site visits but overall it will provide a better user experience that – in time – will reap greater returns for your site.