The code ’301′ is interpreted by search engines as ‘moved permanently’. This is a straightforward and search engine friendly method for redirecting web pages, which should preserve rankings. Using PHP, to permanaently move a page to ‘newpage.html’, insert the following piece of code at the very top of your document, being careful not to include any white space above and below by the DOCTYPE declaration:

Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.somesite.co.uk/newpage.html" );
?>


In short, CCK module was invoked to assemble a number of custom forms,  the results of which sorted in Views, and final brought to the user’s screen via Panels.

The SEO mix featured Nodewords, XML Sitemap, Page Title, and Google Analytics. As expected, ImageCache was used heavily to handle images.

The ecommerce system features an easy to use admin section to upload and manage stock, monitor orders and dispatch, and to keep record of all transactions. The cart, or order basket, is kept in the sidebar and updated automatically throughout the shopping experience. Once the items have been selected, the user proceeds to the checkout, submits his/her personal details, then chooses a payment method. The user has the option to either complete the transaction via Pay Pal, or credit/debit card. The order’s recorded and a confirmation email is sent.

All in all, this is a very convenient and compact ecommerce system, and a must for those wishing to make the transition to online sales. If you have a ‘bricks and mortar’ business, why not compliment it and reap the reward of additional sales with an online ecommerce presence.

Additionally, SEO (search engine optimisation) was undertaken to make sure the products are found when searched for in Google, or another search engine. With some SEO tuning, the page now appears at the top of page one for very relevant search terms.

For seasoned SEO experts and budding beginners alike, the study represents “the collective wisdom of expert practitioners”, and without doubt sheds a some light on what’s percieved by some to be more art than science.

Having left full employment to start their own electrical business, DRC Electrical wasted no time in commissioning a website. The site was built using WordPress for both blogging and content management purposes. It was also integrated with Twitter for quick fire communication.

As a new business in a saturated industry, SEO is crucial for DRC. After keyword analysis, it was determined that the search term ‘electrician surbiton’ is key for generating bread and butter business. Following further SEO work, the site now appears at the top of Google’s page-one; and consequently, is enjoying a steady flow of quality traffic.

For updating the site via a mobile when out and about, a Twitter feed was incorporated and placed prominantly at the top. When needing to post results live from a competetion, short sharp Tweets are perfect.

SEO figured highly in the remit; like any other business, it’s important to reach new members through appropriate search terms. For ‘bjj surrey’, Nova Forca has climbed to third position on page-one of Google beneath the local business listings. It’s not long before they’ll adorn the top spot. For ‘bjj london’ – a very competitive search – they’re at the top of page-two and climbing.

As the site’s coded well and utilises a semantic CMS such as WordPress, it’s well poised to do well in the search rankings under a variety of seach terms. Naturally, the site’s SEO process requires ongoing analysis of keywords related to their industry, and its data from Google Analytics. Additional inbound links will serve as a bonus.

The guide goes over the solid fundamentals of SEO such as semantic URLs, meta tags, and the correct use of various attributes. It’s a good read for all levels.

Download Google’s SEO guide for the inside line on what’s required.

Put simply, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and content of a website in order to drive more traffic to it from search engines, through natural (or organic) search results.

The SEO solutions I offer fall under the ‘White Hat’ umbrella. These boil down to providing content that’s relevant to a web user, as opposed to employing deceptive ‘Black Hat’ techniques, which are aimed at deceiving search engines. Black Hat methods are ridiculous and a waste of time in terms of effort and outcome. White hat solutions are sustainable; not only will they make sure your site scores better, but they’ll enhance the overall user experience of your website. In short, search engines aren’t blind to the quality of a website’s content.

Following the sustainable white hat route leads us neatly to the subject of ‘Accessibility’, which deserves an entire section. Doing SEO the right way helps to meet ‘accessibility issues’ head on. The crux of accessibility is to make your site as accessible as possible to the widest audience. This involves taking in account user disabilities, browser types and ages, and search engines! So you see, optimising your site the correct only enhances it’s accessibility. For further information on accessibility, feel to contact me.

Returning to Search Engine Optimisation, the SEO process isn’t exclusive to a website’s copy (or text), it can also, and should be, extended to image search, local search and vertical search (industry specific, content type specific such as video, or blog specific, to name a few). To use image search as a brief example, let’s take an image you’ve just uploaded to your website, straight from a digital camera without any changes. The image will have a non-descriptive file name such as IMG_1000. As you can probably see, this name would have absolutely no meaning whatsoever to a search engine. Effectively, the image is invisible.

To make an ‘Image’ search aware, could be Google Images for that matter, the image should have a descriptive (or ‘sematic’ in web parlance) name; i.e., if it’s a picture of Golden Retriever puppy, name it as such: [img src="images/golden-retriever-puppy.jpg"]. This example assumes it is in your ‘images’ directory, which is where it should be when maintaining a semantic file structure. Already, you’ve given Google, or another search engine, something to get its hooks into. Another image attribute of importance is ‘alt’, or ‘alternative text’ as its meant to represent.

In Internet Explorer (7 and older), when mousing over an image you’ll see what looks like a ‘tooltip’; this is the alt text being rendered to the screen. Though helpful, this is in fact an error on the part of IE; the correct attribute of that purpose is ‘title’. Apparently this bug has been fixed in IE8. The alt attribute should be rendered when the image can’t be, for whatever reason. Essentially, alt should describe what the user can’t see. Accordingly, standards based browser engines such as Mozilla use the value of the alt attribute as a textual replacement for the image to be displayed when the image isn’t. According to Mozilla, they have seen fit not to display the alt attribute as a tooltip, because doing so encourages authors to misuse the attribute.

Why? Simply put, authors have tended to fill it with useless or superfluous/auxiliary information. Moreover, if a tooltip effect isn’t required, authors will avoid the attribute all together, thus making the experience harder for people who can’t see the image; again, we’re getting back to accessibility. To reiterate, the title attribute should be used to display tooltips in IE8 and non-IE browsers.

So, to use alt effectively, you must describe the picture, or even the whole scene to make it more specific in an ‘Image search’. Don’t fill it spam, keep it simple and descriptive. Back to the puppy example; if the little puppy is playing with a bone, write “golden retriever puppy playing with bone;” no more, no less. Anything more could be construed as spam. A simple description will assist both your accessibility and SEO endeavours. This is just the tip of the SEO iceberg and should serve as a mild introduction; there’s far more to be done including the use of proper markup. For further assistance on SEO, feel free to fire an email off.