Comments on: Website Redesign Checklist: SEO 101

By: stephanie woods

stephanie woods — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:52:05 +0000

Bill – It is possible to build HTML sitemaps for large sites as well. In fact many larges sites have done so successfully. The key to creating a sitemap for a large site is to not include every single page on the site, just the top level and main category pages. To include every page, like you mentioned, you need to use an XML sitemap.

By: Bill Thomson

Bill Thomson — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 03:25:27 +0000

Also important to remember when building sitemaps – if it’s a large site, go with xml. Smaller ones are more feasible for html.

By: Stephanie Woods

Stephanie Woods — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:47:23 +0000

@Jenny That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of someone building links for their sitemap. I am curious to know how well that works out. Thanks for your input!

By: Jenny Stradling

Jenny Stradling — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:31:13 +0000

@Eric Werner and @Stephanie Woods on the XML Sitemap…. I not only optimize the sitemap page using target keyword phrases (both in the linking architecture and the actual meta data) I even build links to the sitemap page itself as well. I`ve found that this encourages a deeper crawl and ensures all of my pages are getting continued visibility.

By: Stephanie Woods

Stephanie Woods — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:49:17 +0000

Gennady Lager – Yes I agree with what you say for sure. I had my marketing cap on when I wrote that. What I mean is: in the world of marketing, people are looking at websites to fulfill a need (whether it be to buy something or find out information). We have 5 seconds (on average) of a visitor’s time to see whether or not we can fulfill that need.

By: Expedia.ca Coupons

Expedia.ca Coupons — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:52:45 +0000

You probably just need to get some more backlinks from reputable sites linking to it. Google devalues links more than Yahoo so where the links you have are being tracked as good by Yahoo, Google is probably not counting them.

By: Gennady Lager

Gennady Lager — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:43:42 +0000

For that last one, I think its 5 seconds to figure out what the site is about and not find what they need. Certainly, it may take longer than that to find certain things – particularly on e-commerce site. Think consumer electronics or computer hardware.

By: Stephanie Woods

Stephanie Woods — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:37:13 +0000

Eric – I did include a HTML sitemap on the list, but did not include XML sitemaps. In hindsight I probably should have because I do normally create them for my clients! Having your sitemap include good anchor text is an interesting strategy I haven’t actually considered – I am going to look more into that one.

Corporate Web Design – I am always surprised at how often web dev companies forget CTAs. It’s such a simple tactic, yet often overlooked in lieu of a great design. Some designers need to learn that the two (design and CTAs) can work together in perfect harmony.

By: Corporate Web Design

Corporate Web Design — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:21:20 +0000

“Ensure there is a good call to action on every page if you want to convert visitors in some way.” That is a step that many web designers/developers are missing. If a call to action is overlooked you may get traffic but once there your target audience will say “I’m here, now what” Great post Stephanie!

By: Eric Werner

Eric Werner — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:17:54 +0000

These are great points. I especially like the reminder about custom 404 pages – I was making a list and would have left this out if you hadn’t mentioned it!

Another thing that can be useful is a site map or xml sitemaps or both. I think I’m gonna add that to my list too. I like the idea of having a site map that links to pages using smart anchor text.