SEO & AI Search (GEO) Expert

Improve your Google ranking with Peter Mahoney, 20+ years SEO & Wordpress experience

Read Google’s Webmaster Tools

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Further to yesterday’s post, Google has created a entire online system to help webmasters (and web owners too, it’s important you know this stuff) improve their Search Engine Optimisation SEO).

And they’ve written it in such a way that anyone can understand it, and even if you’re not the right person to implement it (after all, that’s what you have people like me for) at least you can talk about it.

One of the great fallacies about web work is that it’s too hard for a lay person to understand. Sure, it’s technical, and the implementing things is generally pretty complicated, but look to work with web people who can explain things to you in such a way that you can talk back to them.

Look for people who can explain things like Google does. Clearly. Concisely. Understandably.

Google Webmaster Tools

The importance of original content

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This comes straight from Google themselves. It’s so important to your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to have quality, human readable (i.e., makes sense to a visitor) content.

There’s a lot to be said for curated content, but of course that requires original input too.

One of the most important steps in improving your site’s ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content.

via Little or no original content – Webmaster Tools Help.

I know a lot of people want to shy away from it, after all, writing isn’t most of our core business, but your users do care about what you have to say. That’s generally why they want to spend money with you after all.

So it’s not just SEO. It’s business. Your business.

Speeding up your site

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There is a slew of methods to speed your site up–which is not only the polite thing to do for your guests–but helps with Speed Engine Optimisation (SEO) too. Google in particular looks at how quickly your site loads when deciding how to rank your site in search results.

Now, if you’re familiar with web servers then everything you need to know is written below. If not, this is the sort of thing you want to have an expert do for you; a faster site is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Browser caching is a process whereby we’re able to reduce the number of HTTP requests the server needs to process, which reduced page load times. Your server tells the visitor’s browser not to look for certain files everytime–usually the file that don’t change often anyway.

Edit your .htaccess file for your site, and include this code:

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
# by Peter Mahoney of petermahoney.com
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 2 days"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

Restart your web server, and you’re done!

Noe this isn’t all there is to optimising a website for speed. Especially WordPress websites. As you’ll know by now I’m a WordPress SEO expert so I really pay a lot of attention to speed. There are plugins, image compression techniques and even extra code snippets worth using.

When it comes to plugin choice for WordPress speed I recommend WP Rocket – it does a great job out of the box and with just a few setting changes you can really push the envelope. Using that as well as a series of manual image compression techniques I’m able to improve the average WordPress site’s speed by 40%!

Speeding things up usually does require a few manual tweaks to code here and there – it’s really a job for a professional rather than just trying it yourself (it’s all too easy to stop a site working properly with this stuff.)

I can’t recommend a faster site enough. For your users, SEO – hell even the good of the web itself. Let’s get that content flying.

Five tips for making a company Linkedin page

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I’m always amazed how often I see the words “If you’re not already using LinkedIn”…there is no excuse not to be.

It’s an essential.

If you haven’t already included LinkedIn in your company’s online social media efforts, then you should certainly consider adding a LinkedIn company page to your web presence arsenal. LinkedIn is considered one of the most influential social media platforms on the web, and can make a huge difference in terms of your business’ social media marketing strategy.

A LinkedIn page can connect you with a really wide net of potential partners, customers, suppliers and helpful contacts, and requires a lot less regular attention than many of your other social media accounts.

via 5 Tips for Creating Your Company Linkedin Page.

Honestly, there are so many good reasons to be using it. I accept that if you’re used to the concepts of social networking that you’ll pick up using Facebook or Twitter it can seem a bit odd, but it’s networking, it’s social, and has a built in professional audience looking to make money.

What does your website look like to search engines?

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The short answer is “pretty bland”.

While photo recognition, and language techniques are getting more advanced all the time, the raw data most search engines (including Google and Bing) see when they do a first pass on your site is very sparse.

Text will almost always be the most important Search Engine Optimisation feature you have (buy all the link pyramids you want, but if your site doesn’t have key, unique, relevant writing you’re achieving nothing) and using software like Lynx is an excellent way to test it.

Lynx as a browser pre-dates pretty-much every browser you’re likely to have on your computer, and is the browser a lot of search engine spiders use.

You can use it on Linux easily, or save yourself the hassle as use a web based version:
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html

Check to see that the text on your site is readable in it, that your menu structure shows (and works), and that the text it does show makes sense. That might seem odd at first, but  you’d be surprised how many sites do not make sense when viewed in simple text (i.e. they rely too much on graphics to do their talking) and search engines like to read things they can understand; that a human will make sense of easily.

It’s a little SEO tool in what needs to be a big arsenal.

petermahoney.com as it appears in Lynx

Is that name taken?

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A fantastic, really quick way to see if the username you want is available at a swag of social networking sites. It’s a very easy way to choose your person brand name.

Check to see if your desired username or vanity url is still available at dozens of popular Social Networking and Social Bookmarking websites. Promote your brand consistently by registering a username that is still available on the majority of the most popular sites. Find the best username with namechk.

via Check Username Availability at Multiple Social Networking Sites.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of signing up to do!

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