I'm taking a different approach in this week's website review. Normally, I look for poorly ranked websites and try to find reasons why they are not ranking well. When I started my search this week, I found a bunch of mediocre websites that were outranked by Yelp and YellowPages. All of the websites needed improvement. Oddly enough, the site I thought needed the most improvement, was outranking all of the others.
Today, I'll explore why that might be happening. First, I searched for "jewelers Healdsburg CA" and saw these resul... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Every Friday, I venture out into the unknown to find a website that needs some help; I call them flops that could use some fixing. My hope is that you, the reader, will be able to learn a thing or two from someone else's mistakes, so that's what I look for.
This week I searched Google for the phrase "jewelers in Chapel Hill NC," and got these results:
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I introduced 4 SEO issues that harm product catalogs that are usually correctable with a little bit of work. There's another, more technical SEO issue that often runs wild on many product catalog and e-commerce sites that must now be addressed.
Have a burning question you need answered about your website? Send it in through the jWAG Contact Form or to me directly through any social network; just search for my name "matthewperosi" on any social network and send a message.
Today I'll weigh my opinion in on this question
Hi Matt,
When setting up my new website, my programmer had all of my internal page links open into a new window... is this normal prac... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Welcome to this week's edition of the Friday Website review. I'm journeying to Bayside, NY this week in search of my website review candidate. Using Google Chrome, I searched for the phrase "jewelers near bayside ny" and saw these results:
In this edition of ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to May 2011, and my discussion of HTML Site Maps.
There are two types of site map files you might find on a website. If you've ever worked on your search engine optimization, you might be familiar with the sitemap.xml file that search engines read to better understand your website. That XML file contained a record of every page on your site ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I explained a little about your website site speed and how to view the Google Analytics report that shows you how slow your website is.
While you could ask your website programmer to help you figure out how to fix your website, there's another report in Google Analytics that gives you initial ideas of what to do. It's called the Speed Suggestions report and it can be... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Today's Throwback Thursday is going back to January 2011 to the Nugget about website speed.
In that old Nugget, I explained that a website's speed could be adversely affected by the software that runs it, i.e. the content management system, or CMS for short.
This is still very true today, and it's probably the main thing I look at when evaluating a website. A sloppy CMS or website ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Let's talk about depreciated HTML tags. This is my Throwback Thursday topic from the last time I told you about a few depreciated HTML tags to avoid.
The HTML language is currently in its 5th incarnation, as in HTML5. Prior to Cascading Style Sheets, aka CSS, we had to use formatting features built into the HTML code, like <font> and <big> and <center>. Now we use CSS to format how a web page looks. <... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
A few days ago, Search Engine Land published an interesting article explaining how Google is penalizing websites that abuse the way they use schema.orgmarkup. That post was an interesting read for me and a good lead in for this edition of Throwback Thursday.
It's officially been one month since Google Mobilegeddon on April 21, 2015. I've been eagerly following the blogs and new channels of several companies that are tracking the results, and they all seem mixed.
Google started showing mobile friendly websites in search results earlier than April 21st. Reports from Search Engine Land stated that the mobilegeddon rollout seemed to be slo... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Last week I wrote my weekly jewelry website review while I was waiting for my flight to France in Newark Liberty Airport, in Newark, NJ. Because I was sitting in the airport, I had the opportunity to present that review from the point of view of an actual mobile user.
Welcome to the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Every week, I randomly search for retail jeweler websites to review as an educational exercise. Over the last two weeks, in the wake of Google recent announcement regarding mobile readiness, I've written severalVIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Search engine optimization was once a game of pure guesswork. SEO specialists would simply watch their own efforts of what worked and what didn't work, then simply follow the same steps over and over again.
Companies like MOZ.com and SearchEngineLand.com have communities of users always trying to figure out which supposed SEO techniques work, and which don't. Search Engine Land even published their of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll cover one of the nagging mobile website issues that Google doesn't like any more. Well, I don't know if they ever liked it, but in this video they've clearly pointed it out.
It all started a few years ago when people first started dabbling in mobile websites. It's difficult to retrofit a desktop site to include a mobile version, unless you are willing to redesign the entire site again. Setting up a parallel mob... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm showing you a few things to watch out for when creating your mobile website. These mobile recommendations come directly from Google from this video.
No Pinch Zooming or Plug-ins
There should never be a need to zoom in on a mobile website. The website content should naturally fit the size of the screen as you see here:
Every year for the last 5 years, many website programmers and marketing guys have tried to say "this is the year mobile websites will take over," but we've all been wrong. I was so wrong when I said 2010 would be the year of the mobile website; back then, it was just the year of the mobile website hype.
Mobile marketing and mobile websites had to go through a few stages of evolution to get to where we are as of today. As smartphones really started... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. The goal for today is to review a random website in order to learn something good, or bad, from someone else's work.
Review Candidate & SERP
To find my review candidate, I normally choose a city at random and search for local jewelers, however, this week I wanted to find a winter themed town name with a nearby jeweler. Using Google Maps I found the unincorporated community of Snow in Clinton County, Kentucky.
Let's imagine that there's a special gift giving day coming up soon and I need to buy a gift. Assuming that I live in Englewood, Colorado I might do a Google search for "buy jewelry gifts in Englewood Colorado."
Today is the weekly website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. The goal of this review is to randomly search Google for a retail jewelry store and learn something from scrutinizing how they manage their website and online identity. There's always something to learn from these reviews, whether it's learning from someth... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Technical SEO is certainly something that computer scientists and programmers do best. Even though the technical SEO procedures are important, I don't often not... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This short post is part of my "Grains of SEO Gold" series covering basic SEO topics and how to apply them.
Today's SEO Topic: Meta Robots Tag
During a recent website review, I illustrated how duplicate content could be created on your website when using the services from an agency that specializes in creating websites for retail jewelry stores.
Specialty marketing agencies exist in every vertical market (ones to do with g... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This Daily Golden Nugget will demonstrate one possible way to use the HTML 5 tags of <b>, <strong>, <i>, and <em>. If you missed the previous two nuggets you should check them out before reading this one.
Previous Nugget on <b> vs. <strong>: http://bit.ly/?????? Previous Nugget on <i> vs. <em>: http://bit.ly/??????
The product detail page on every jewelry e-commerce website has some sort of table presentation of information. Usually it shows the metal type, carat total weight, diamond shape, etc.
Here a full example of typical information found on a jewelry product detail page:
14k White Gold 0.85ct Diamond Engagement Ring (this is the item title) The center diamond is included with this sophisticated three-stone cathedral engagement ring that features two... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This Daily Golden Nugget is 4th in a series about HTML 5 issues that the jewelry store owner should know. This topic, and the previous Nuggets this week, are not too technical so please read through them all so you and your website are prepared.
Today we are going to explain the difference between the 2 different ways you can italicize words on your page, and give you solid examples that you, the jewelry store owner, will understand.
As an introduction, let's begin with the tags themselves. We have the "Italic Tag" and the "Emphasize Tag," and in their default functionality both will make words italicized on your web page.
Here's what they look like: <i>Art Nouveau</i> <em>Art Nouveau</em>
We are in the middle of a week of Daily Golden Nuggets all relating to the hardships jewelers will face when we are all forced to use the up and coming HTML 5 technology.
On Monday this week we talked about web browsers and how their advancements are forcing us to make changes.
On Tuesday this week we told you about a few common HTML programming tags that are being phased out and gave you a clues how to protect yourself.
Today we are going to explain the difference between the 2 different ways you can bold words on your page, and give you solid examples that you, the jewelry store owner will understand.
As an introduction, let's begin with the tags themselves. We have the "Bold Tag" and the "Strong Tag," and in their default functionality both will make words bold on your web page.
A few short years ago, changing your website meant you needed to hire a programmer. The expense was always high and many websites were never changed (practically abandoned) after they were initially created.
Today most, if not all, websites are created using various types of content management systems (CMS for short) that give you, the jewelry store owner, the power to edit your own website.
We understand that the technical stuff behind your website is of complete disinterest to you. You have diamonds to mount, rings to size, employees to worry about, and bills to pay. We know that you are probably a complete neophyte when it comes to web programming, and that's okay.
On the other hand, like a rolling stone through the desert that gathers a little dirt, over time you might have picked up a few little HTML programmi... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
HTML is the programming language for the web. Any web page you look at through a web browser needs to be presented using the Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML for short.
In the early days of the World Wide Web, HTML was pretty simple. In those days all you needed was a way to show words on a screen, some images, and create links from one page to another. The functionality of HTML quickly expanded and new web browser versions kept coming out to support the expansions.
HTML blossomed into different versions and by time early public awareness of the web came about in 1996, we were already using HTML version 3.2. That was quickly replaced by HTML 4 in April 1998.
The next version of HTML, version 5, promises to solve a lot of programming issues between proprietary web browser techniques and programming methods. One ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Every day, the team over at Google's headquarters makes advances in Search Engine technology. A few years ago they announced the ability to read Flash websites, and then last year they further announced the ability to read deeper inside Flash websites.
Unfortunately, Flash websites still suffer from lower ranking than normal HTML websites.
In 2010, Google admitted that they have trouble reading websites that rely on JavaScript or AJAX. The Googlebot spider is not able to provide the user input needed to display website information that to us would be very simple to interact with.
The result is that websites with heavy JavaScript and AJAX programming are penalized similar to Flash websites. A simple home page rotating image is nothing to worry about, but you should worry if all the menus on your website rely on Java... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
The bottom line of today's Golden Nugget is: Don't require JavaScript or Flash or Java to make your Contact Us form work. You are potentially missing out on a lot of visitors who may have tried to reach you, but couldn't because of technology limitations.
Why did we start this Nugget with the "bottom line?" Because the explanation is a little history lesson that might not interest you. Keep reading if you would like to have a well rounded understanding of why JavaScript/Flash/Java are all bad for your Contact Us form.
Every few days a new computerized device is released; new computers, new cell phones, new GPS, new portable gizmos of some type that can connect to the internet.
Even though the hardware changes, the underlying programming languages of the internet haven't changed much in several years.
Design is one of the foremost concerns for your website. Trying to figure out the aesthetics that best please your customer is very difficult. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you personally like, because the customer will like something completely different.
You need to program your website so it best functions for your users.
Typical design concerns are: * Width of the website. Do you want to be full screen or static width? * Colors. * What web browsers do you want it to work in? IE, Firefox and Safari are the big players. * Do you want the website to work on a mobile device? * Do you want to use a lot of images as part of the design? * Do you want Flash? Remember Flash does not work in IE 64-bit, the standard browser for Windows 7. * Do you want your website readable by users with visual impair... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
"Black Hat SEO" refers to any search engine optimization technique that is considered misleading for users, or for the purposes of tricking the search engines into showing your website to more people.
In one of Google's training videos, they explain that they can now process all CSS, HTML, dynamic HTML, XML and JavaScript code. This not only allows them to discover functionality on your website, but also if you are trying to use one of those methods for Black Hat purposes.
Before Google started processing code like this, you could get away with several nasty little tricks to hide extra words on your website and sway the search engines toward your favor.
One such example of hiding text is to have a white background with several extra paragraphs of repeating white text at the bottom of... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Today's Gold Nugget should surprise the HTML programming enthusiasts and provide at least some curiosity to the non-initiated.
There is a lot of talk in the web programming community about correct methods of programming. Officially, if you program a website from scratch today you should be using a technique referred to as Semantic Programming. This is a fancy way to explain that your web page is split into 2 components: your words and your design.
The "words" part of your web page is organized using simple HTML programming. The "design" part of your web page is the cascading style sheet (CSS for short) which includes all your font sizes, colors, background, etc.
Splitting up the words and the design like this makes your website more flexible for future change, but it doesn't necessarily make your website faster. Y... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
As the world of mobile website matures, you should start wondering whether or not you will ever see your mobile website in the search results. If you haven't given it any thought then maybe you should, and if you haven't considered a mobile website yet then you should.
There are a lot of tricky techniques to setting up a mobile website. It's not as easy as it may seem.
For example, your web programmer can't simply set up a .mobi domain name and create a website that looks good on a cell phone. You actually need to make sure the web server sends the proper programming code to the cell phone, and that technique is actually pretty tough--most web hosting companies are clueless about it.
We could also say that setting up a mobile website is not as easy as buying a mobile website template and slapping it up at VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In years past, there were two different types of web programmers: the organized ones and the sloppy ones.
We're not talking about their desk, cubical, or car; no, in fact we're talking about their techniques in writing programming code.
The organized programmer would make sure all their HTML code was properly organized (we call it nested) and easy to read. Being organized always takes more time, but it saves time in the future when you need to edit code.
The sloppy programmer would slap together HTML code without any regard for organization. Many times they would also write bad or broken code that would not display properly in all web browsers. Debugging sloppy code is always a nightmare.
Luckily programs like Dreamweaver can take sloppy code and automatically organize it into something easily understood.VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away." -Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
