A 301 redirect is a method of telling web browsers and search engines that a website or web page has permanently moved to a new location or address. An example of this might be:
A webmaster wants to change their domain URL from www.domain.co.uk to www.domain.com. By adding a 301 redirect from the .co.uk address to the .com address, a web visitor using a standard web browser will automatically be re-directed to the .com address. Additionally, a search engine will also automatically be redirected to the new domain. Because a 301 redirect indicates a permanent change of address, the search engine should also automatically update all the links within it’s index. Also, any search engine page rankings and links to the site should also be preserved which is very important, especially for older, more established websites.
301 redirects are also used internally for websites to prevent internal content duplication issues such as canonicalization / canonicalisation and for updating page names. For example, if an unfriendly URL is changed so that is ‘friendly’ a 301 redirect would be used from the old link to the new so that users and search engines know the location has permanently changed i.e.
Changing www.domain.com/page?124 to www.domain.com/services.
One of the services that we are very proud to offer at Elevator SEO, is web usability analysis and reporting. For the first blog post about web usability I thought I would demonstrate the ‘F-Pattern’ eye tracking images. So what do these images show? Well it’s a bit like a thermal image for demonstrating how the standard user views a web page. The areas that appear ‘hotter’ in red and yellow are the areas the user has spent the most time looking at. The blue areas have been viewed but only for a very short amount of time. Any area not coloured has not been looked at directly.
So what do the above images tell us, and more importantly how do they help us in terms of usability?
The image on the left shows a standard web page and what it shows us is that the average users views the content at the top of the page the most but only really focuses on the first 2-4 paragraphs of text. Anything longer than that is not really read properly by the average user. There attention has also been drawn in by the navigation on the left, and a call out on the right of the page. In terms of designing a website, this tells us we should keep content short / succint and prioritise the most important information at the top of the page (much like with SEO). There also appears to be 2 sets of navigation (the top and the left side). The navigation on the left had more viewing time than the top which shows the importance of placement of your navigation in the page (when you consider the user, not just what you thinks looks prettiest). The result shows an ‘F’ style pattern, which is why this is called the F-pattern eye tracking image.
The second image shows much the same, with attention being drawn to the image and call out boxes (highlighted information).
The third image shows a search engine result page (SERP) which again follows the format of the F-Pattern in the way it is viewed by the user. What is also interesting is that the top 5 results are the most viewed along with the top sponsored links, which supports the belief that most users don’t get past the 2nd or 3rd page of the SERPs.
I get a lot of calls from clients that initally want to manage their own analytics data, but don’t understand what a lot of the information means. Here is a quick summary of the dashboard information:
Visits. This refers to the number of visitors that been to your website, in the example above this is 17,311 between the period of Apr 1st - May 1st 2007 (which is very good!).
Pages / visit. This refers to the number of pages that each of the visitors looks at on average. In this instance the average is 1.74 pages per user. This is actually quite low, so you may want to look at improving the homepage to draw people into your website. This might include using call to actions, improving the navigation, updating the content etc.
Bounce rate. This refers to the percentage of users that leave the site from the landing page i.e. they leave the site without looking at any other pages. Bounce rate for this site is 69.71% which is high, and correlates with the low pages per visit.
Page views. This is the total number of pages that have been viewed over the selected time period, whichi in this instance is 30,080.
Avg. time on site. This is the average amount of time each user spends on the website. In this case the average time is 2 minutes and 6 seconds. So although the bounce rate is quite high, the average user spends quite a lot of time on the site.
New visits. This is the amount of completely new visits to the website, so from the data we can see that there has been 65.36% new visits so we know that there is 34.64% repeat visits.
The data that Google collects can be quite detailed, and can give you a fantastic insight into your traffic and how your site is used. The aspects covered above barely scratch the surface of the analysis that can be made. For more information about traffic analysis you can contact us.
So Google Chrome has now been available for download for a number of months now, so you’re maybe thinking that isn’t particularly new information. However, what a lot of people don’t realise is that there is a 3 stage process to a Beta release:
Stable
Developer
Final Beta
The latest version of Chrome is supposed to be considerably faster than it’s predecessor, it’s unique user interface is now packed with additional features. One of the features I thought was particularly nice was the ability to view tabs of pages side by side. This is great when I’m in the office and I’m working from a single monitor, or using my laptop as it allows me to view multiple pages simultaneously, and relatively easily.
After taking a quick look on YouTube we found loads of videos where users had screen captured their experiences with Chrome, and demonstrated some of the nicer features. Here is a video showing a few of them:
Whereas I don’t think Chrome will be my primary browser just yet, it’s showing a lot of potential and is slowly catching up with Firefox (for me personally - not worldwide!) in terms of it’s likeability. The latest version of Chrome is available for download (for free), so if you haven’t tried or heard of it yet, give it a try. Additionally, if you have an older version of Chrome make sure you update to the latest version. A lot of bugs have been ironed out, and the speed improvements are a big plus.
White hat SEO is a term used to describe search engine optimisation techniques. Techniques are considered as ‘white hat’ or ‘ethical SEO‘ if they adhere to guidelines provided by the Search Engines. Most SEO companies will claim that they use only ethical or white hat techniques.
In contrast to white hat techniques, there is what is known as ‘black hat’ SEO. This refers to techniques for optimising your site that aren’t within the search engine guidelines. These techniques are often used to deceive or trick the search engine robots by doing things such as hiding text, using door way pages, using hidden links etc. Black hat SEO techniques are popular with spam websites, and can generate traffic in the short term. However, long term if you are seen to be using black hat techniques you will be penalised or banned from the search engine index completely.
‘Grey hat’ SEO is also a term that exists. This is when it isn’t clear if a technique is white hat or black hat, but is probably best avoided if possible. If you are unsure if you have are using black hat techniques, you should get a professional SEO company or SEO consultant to review your site.
We offer a free SEO website analysis report for everyone who would like to know more. Simple provide few details including your name, email and domain. Once verified we will analyse your site and send you a PDF of your report. Click for your Free Analysis
