Hope you are well…

I am writing to offer an SEO Consultancy. Free of charge (this time only!)

As you know, when a website serves users from around the world with content translated or targeted to users in a certain region, the website should use rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” attributes to help you-Google serve the correct language or regional URL in Search results.

Also, if the content has small regional variations with similar content in a single language, hreflang should also be used in this case. For example, you might have separate English-language content targeted to the US  and to GB, something like here:

https://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/crawling-indexing.html

https://www.google.co.uk/insidesearch/howsearchworks/crawling-indexing.html

When searching for how google works indexing crawling, I get these double results:

Those pages are completely identical:

USA/ or en -international page:

and UK page:

This is not the best user experience. We really should think about the user first.

And where is hreflang?

USA/ or en international page:

UK page:

Nowhere.

Naughty, naughty! Looks like someone has forgotten about the hreflang!

To learn more about hreflang, go to your article here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

This is very important as thi will really help you avoid duplication.

If you’re providing the same content to the same users on different URLs, you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately (this is not your case!). However, in addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers (this is your case here).

Please read more about it here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en&ref_topic=2370587

If you still have problem, please contact me (or any other SEO consultant), we would be happy to help!

Love,

Mags

The post Dear Google. An open letter. appeared first on #MagsTags.

There are 5 particular books that I found extremely helpful during the time of deciding if I should leave my job. I knew if I ever decide to go on my own, there is no way anything forces me to go back to work permanently from 9 to 6 p.m. Instead, now I am at my desk for more than 50 hours per week:) but somehow it feels completely different.

So here are the 5 books that helped me quit my job and helped survive the first year as an Entrepreneur:

1) Be a Free Range Human: Escape the 9-5, Create a Life You Love and Still Pay the Bills Paperback by Marianne Cantwell

There not so many books on the Amazon.co.uk with 100+ reviews and almost all of them being 5 star reviews! Well, Marianne’s book is one of them!

This book was a serious deal breaker for me. I bought the book in November and in December after years of not being able to make a decision, I resigned from my job! I didn’t have a solid plan, but I have my SEO knowledge and great digital marketing experience and I knew that I would survive (somehow).

This book is not about creating a business thought! It’s about showing you other ways of living! It’s about creating and living the life you really want and finding the ways to financially support that lifestyle.

Marianne points something very interesting out, though, you cannot succeed unless you have a passion for what you do! Passion is the fuel of commitment; it’s the only way you’re going to have the drive and energy to achieve the “expert status” you’ll really need to succeed.

I absolutely love this book for its simplicity! If something scares us, we often overcomplicate things and that unable us to make a breakthrough! This book was my break through to the new, more independent life!

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

I seriously regret that I haven’t read this book before I launched my first startup PeriodBox. It would help me to avoid so many bad decisions! Yes, I have learnt so much from them, but it just would so much easier (and cheaper!) to learn from other people’s mistakes:)

This book makes you really think and learn, whilst changing one’s own perceptions on innovation and entrepreneurship. Most of the startups fail, but many of those failures are preventable.

Be able to test your ideas, being ready to fail and learn from it and if you never stop seeking a better business model then soon enough one will eventually find something profitable and offerings.

The book is loaded with fascinating, interesting stories and practical principals. Some people say your first business model is the worst one and that gives me a lot of hopes!:)

Start it up. Why running your won business is easier than you think, by Luke Johnson.

That was one of the first books I read when started on my own. Luke Johnson is a successful entrepreneur and his writing is not only inspirational but packed with personal anecdotes and observations on the journey that made him a multi-millionaire.

Apart from the great quotes from people as diverse as Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill I was mainly impressed with what qualities I would need to run a successful business. This is a book to lift the spirits, make you punch the air and just ‘go for it.’

The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth, by Robert G. Allen

This terrific book has been created in a very unusual style and is a piece of genius in recognising how different things inspire different people. It is part fiction and part training manual and the two blend beautifully.

The story is about somebody who has recently lost her husband and has to make a million dollars in just 90 days. Her belief in herself and the single-mindedness of her methodology is awe inspiring. The principles and skills that she learns the hard way on her journey to success are explained in the ‘textbook’ part of the book.

This is a read that gives a new twist to gaining financial success and is like a breath of fresh air. The book focuses on a lot of the usual stuff such as being committed, and the psychology of success. It also deals with the secrets of leverage and marketing. The story is entertaining, and the factual information is inspiring.

5. The Big Leap by Hendricks Gay

This is a brilliant novel that examines the facts that create our inability to be a success in business, love and work. Hendricks is a psychologist, so is well qualified to discuss our individual areas of genius, excellence and confidence. He explains the strange reason we can live perfectly well within our range of excellence and competence but only a few people within their area of genius. Do we spend too much time waiting for something to go wrong? When we have a small success, do we waiting to get knocked back? Successful people stay in their genius zones and leave negatives for the rest of us to worry about.
 

 
Wrap up
It takes lots of courage, hard work and creativity to walk away from the corporate world. I did it and it’s been a roller-coaster of a ride! These five books inspired me on the quest for following my dreams. Five different styles but one explicit message; you can achieve success, but there are rules to follow.

The post 5 Books that Helped Me Quit my Corporate Job! appeared first on #MagsTags.

When choosing a custom permalinks (e.g. at magstags.com I set up my permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/), it breaks pagination and the links generate 404 pages/ 404 error (“page not found”).

Why does the category pagination break?

After setting up your permalink structure to /%category%/%postname%/, second page URL of category listing page will be /category-name/page/2/ . WordPress firstly check if the next component after “category’ is subcategory and if it is not, then it will assume it must be a post name, so it will treat the “page” element as a post name. However in reality the “page” isn’t really a part of the structure as such a post doesn’t exist. As a result, 404 page will be returned.

It is a bit shame that such a silly problem still exist in 4.1 version of WordPress!

WordPress Category Pagination Fix

A few years back, I have tested quite a few solutions including some .php functions, but nothing really worked. After hours and hours of work on the category page (template category.php) I came across this plugin: “Category pagination fix”. I installed and activated and all is working nicely.

Although this plugin hasn’t been updated for some time, I have never came across any issue correlated with its installation. At the moment, I use the latest version of WordPress (4.1) and one of the latest responsive themes and I have no issues with it. I have also recently looked for a new solution, but I haven’t found anything better than this old “Category pagination fix” plugin.

SEO implications and Set up

Now if you use paginated pages, there are some SEO implications connected to it usage. Since your website is set up in WordPress, paginated category pages will add page numbers to URLs, e.g. /category-name/page/2/, /category-name/page/3/ etc. If not set up correctly, Google might flag it as a duplication and thin content. For larger websites, it is also connected with a management of crawl efficiency (because of crawl limitations).

Also, if your homepage is not set up to a “static page” (in dashboard > setting> reading), the homepage will show latest posts and you will have a similar issue as your homepage content is spread over the span of multiple pages.

To sort this, Google introduced a few solutions. The most relevant solution is to add rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags to paginated pages, so that they can distinguish them as a series and send users to the most relevant page/URL—typically the first page of the series.

The tags need to be added in the <head> section of the website. By implementing rel=”prev”/”next”, you create a chain between all pages in the pagination series. It is also recommended to add canonical tag to the page itself.

Example.
On the homepage, http://magstags.com :

<link rel=’next’ href=’http://magstags.com/page/2/’ />
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://magstags.com/” />

on the 2nd page, http://magstags.com/page/2/:

<link rel=’prev’ href=’http://magstags.com/’ />
<link rel=’next’ href=’http://magstags.com/page/3/’ />
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://magstags.com/page/2/” />

The great news is that you do not need to reach out to developers to implement it. There are already many great plugins out there like All in One SEO plugin or WordPress SEO, which after installation and activation automatically add those tags to your paginated pages.

Hope that helps!

The post WordPress Category Pagination 404 Error- Fix & SEO Setup appeared first on #MagsTags.

However, I also feel a bit nostalgic. SEO made an amazing journey during the last 15 years, which I had a pleasure to be part of for the last 8 of them.

The “old” SEO times

I got to SEO by building my own website in HTML (by the book= with a book in my hand). After I launched it, there was no traffic coming through, so I bought another book, “How to get to the top of Google and Stay There”,  and optimised the pages according to the book’s chapters, I also created a few external links. 3 months later the website started ranking for highly searchable terms. And I got my first customer!

Literally, that’s all I did. But this project got me my first full-time job in SEO without me having any previous formal experience (I take the book for the interview with me though?!)

In that time, SEO was all about technical optimisation (yay!) and… spamming (to call a spade a spade:). I remember submitting URLs to directories (aka link building), creating doorway pages and submitting an enormous amount of content to different article directories. Of course, I will never admit to buying links or creating hundreds of websites for links- no one did that (I’ve also learnt British sarcasm). I can’t even imagine how super-fun (and dodgy) SEO must have been before I even joined it!!

But those were also the times when I’ve learnt a lot about the technical aspects of SEO. I spent an enormous amount of hours on technical audits of large websites built on bespoke platforms. Those builds didn’t follow any possible form of SEO guidelines. It was the best playground I could ever imagine! Duplications (jsessions), hidden content/ cloaking, problems with accessibility, indexation, crawl- just name it! I loved it! (and I could make a cup of tea for myself before a single page finished loading!)

The “better” SEO times

In the same time, Google was working on their spam detection. SEO slowly started evolving to meet constantly changing Google guidelines and algorithm updates (like Panda or Penguin to name a few!). “Content became the King”.

More great platforms with out-of-the-box SEO solutions were built (the day I discovered WordPress was like Christmas in the middle of the summer!) and technical SEO seemed to get slightly less focus.

2015

Today, SEO is finally all about the customers. The SEO specialist job description has been completely rewritten and now combines activities from many other disciplines like social, content or ux. Keeping a user in the center of everything to build sites that really add value, is definitely the way to go.

I just miss the technical part, a bit…

So thank you for the Technical SEO session at Brighton SEO on Friday. It truly made my day.

The post Why #BrightonSEO made me feel nostalgic. appeared first on #MagsTags.

The owner of the website wanted to rank for “romantic restaurants” on Google.co.uk. The landing page, although partially optimised, was a simple page with a few restaurants mentioned. THIS APPROACH NO LONGER WORKS!

There are two things you need to focus on if you’re hoping for google to notice your website:

• Give Google the reasons to rank you high
• Stop being obsessed about the links!

You need to understand that, what Google wants on their first page is a VARIETY, AUTHORITY and VALUE!

1. Give the reasons for Google to rank (it’s all about the users!)

As a website owner, ask (and answer honestly!) yourself the following questions:

1. Why would Google even consider ranking your website high in search results pages?
2. Does your website add value to the visitors that read this content?
3. Will the information presented really help them? /answer their questions?
4. Does your website discuss the subject from a different angle?
5. Is there a niche within ‘romantic restaurants” that you might want to cover to differentiate yourself? and finally…
6. What makes your page better than others’ ranking high for this term?

So the first task is to OFFER SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND PROVIDE INFORMATION THAT REALLY ADDS VALUE TO YOUR CUSTOMER!

Plan how you want to “approach” your content. I strongly believe that competitive terms require a strong internal link push and relevant content across the site (especially if you are a startup!).

Don’t optimise a single page to rank for a specific keyword but optimise the structure of the website to support that page! Your solid base should be a well-planned information architecture of an entire site.

2. Stop being obsessed about links!

When you have a great content on the site, content that really help your visitors and is truly unique, it’s time to start thinking about AUTHORITY.

As an entrepreneur or owner of a startup site, it’s all about building your brand awareness and this is how I tend to approach “link building”. Don’t ask for links in your first email. Make your brand visible first. Make people learn about it and understand it before anything else. If done correctly, those bloggers and journalists will keep you in mind when writing about a relevant subject to your site.

And the last but not least, be realistic. You cannot build AUTHORITY by getting a few links. Becoming a well-recognised brand usually takes time. Knowing market influencers and keeping a good relationship with them can definitely help.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The post A Busy Entrepreneur? Forget about Link Building! appeared first on #MagsTags.

In this article, I explain a simple and a very quick method of setting up a fully automated Mailchimp newsletter sign up process on your WordPress website. However, this implementation doesn’t have to be limited to an email sign-up function only. In case of a different CTA, you still can create your inline or exit form by using the steps below!

MailChimp Setup

Step 1: Sign up to Mailchimp

I don’t think I need to introduce MailChimp to anyone, but just in case, MailChimp is an email marketing service provider, founded in 2001. It has 6 million of users that collectively send over 10 billion emails through the service each month. Bloggers and companies love it for its awesome flexibility and great features whilst staying completely free for those who just start building their mailing lists!

Step 2: Set up a mailing list, e.g. Monthly Newsletter

If you are not familiar with MailChimp, there are a few things to be aware of:

• Each list is a separate entity so subscribers’ data on one list is not shared among other lists within the same account.
• When naming the list, bare in mind that the name of the list is visible to your subscribers, so keep that in mind when choosing a name!

I usually maintain a single list per organization/ website or a client in my account.

Step 3. Decide on data you want to collect.

Less is more. The fewer fields you ask your visitors to fill in, the more subscribers you will get. I usually collect just the first name and an email address if I set up a typical blog form. As a blogger, I really don’t need the surnames to communicate with my subscribers.

Integrate Your Contact Forms with MailChimp

Step 4: Install Contact Form 7

Those who use WordPress know that Contact Form 7 to WordPress is like Jesse to Walter- they can live without each other, but what kind of life that really would be?

I prefer to use Contact Form 7 than the MailChimp forms because they are much more flexible and very easy to edit and customise. Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest plugins ever created. I cannot praise enough its simplicity and brilliance. Just install it and test it yourself!

Step 5: Install Contact Form 7 MailChimp Extension

I found Contact Form 7 MailChimp Extension as the simplest way to integrate MailChimp mailing lists with Contact Form 7. It simply allows you to automatically save your subscribers to a proper mailing list in your MailChimp account. In other words, all the data of your contacts and subscribers are integrated into one list.

Step 6: Add every person who contacts you to your mailing list.

In order to make it work, you need to obtain MailChimp’s API key. To do it, open a new tab in your browser and login to your Mailchimp account: https://admin.mailchimp.com/account/

Click on “Extras” and then the link highlighted (red) above you will be presented with the API key. Click “Create a key” button and copy the new key to your clipboard.

Now, go back to your WordPress site (previous tab), go to your contact form and click “Add new”:

Click on Mailchimp tab. It should look like this:

Input your MailChimp API key in the appropriate field.

Now you need to obtain the list ID you want to intergrade the form with. To do so, go back to Mailchimp account (the other open tab) and click on Lists link on the top of the page. Go to the settings of the list you want to intergrade the form with:

and the ID will be presented on the bottom of the page. Copy it to a clipboard.

Go back to the other tab and input your MailChimp list ID in the appropriate field.

To give your visitor an option to opt-in/opt-out to subscribe to your mailing list, add this line: [opt-in] in th  “required field option”, also insert [your-name] and [your-email] functions in the correct fields too.

Then click on the first tab of your form called “Form” and add this line of code above the “Submit” button:
<p>[checkbox opt-in default:1 "Send me a monthly newsletter"]</p>

Now, add a name to the form o the top of the page, e.g. My Fist Form and save the form!

If you want to redirect your users to a thank you page or any other page after contacting with you, in the “Additional” tab of the form add this line of the code and change url part to your landing url:

on_sent_ok: "location = ' http://domain.com/yourdesiredurl';"

and click “Save”.

The shortcode of the form itself will be presented above the form:

Copy it and paste to your contact page and publish it. The form should look similar to the one I have on “contact me” page.

Consequently, every visitor who contacts you will be also added to the mailing list you have chosen during this process.

BUILD AN INLINE FORM

Inline forms are very powerful tools to acquire more subscribers. Since your posts might generate traffic coming from Google, the blog post itself is the first thing the new visitors see on your website. If they like the content, they will more likely subscribe to your newsletter- the inline form is a great way to encourage them to do so!

Here is an example of the inline form I use on MagsTags.com site:

To create it, go to your Contact Form 7 and below the “Contact” form you’ve just created, click “Duplicate”.

Change the name of the form to “Inline form”. Make sure that API and ID are still there, in the MailChimp, if not just copy and paste them from the previous form (as well as other fields- name and email).

Go to the “Form” tab, delete entire content and paste the below code instead:

<div class="postform" style="text-align:center;"><p><h6>Like this post? Sign up for my monthly newsletter!</h6> Learn how to attract a relevant audience to your websites.</p> <div class="postformtext">[text* your-name placeholder "First name"] [email* your-email placeholder "Your email"] [submit "Send"]</div></div>

Adding those additional divs will help your designers to style them or you can do it yourself if you know basic CSS.

Now, copy the shortcode of the form (it is shown just below the name of the form) and paste it to your posts!
You can also add it at the bottom of your posts. Apparently the newsletter signup below a post convert at 2% for some websites.

BUILD AN EXIT FORM

“Exit” has a new meaning in ecommerce world nowadays. Apparently 70% of visitors who abandon your website will never return! The exit-intent technology detects user behavior and prompts them with a targeted campaign at the precise moment they are about to leave. Let’s try to capture that abandons with an exit form!

To do that, you have two options.

OPTION 1.

Installing a Ready to Use Solution (PAID)

There is quite a few solution already there like SumoMe, MailMunch, OptinMonster to name a few! Although some of them can be used also for free, their customisation is very limited.  If you decide to go for the paid version, you will get many advanced settings- not only you can style it but also you can decide on which pages and when the pop up shows etc.

This option is definitely easier and ideal for those without basic html and css skills.

OPTION 2.

Installing a wBounce Plugin (FREE)

This option is completely free and it integrates Contact Form 7 with a great plugin, created by talented Kevin Weber, called wBounce. To create a nice looking form you need to have some basic html and css coding skills, but all the code can be inserted via dashboard directly into plugin’s setting.

Start from installing wBounce in your WordPress.

Now, go to the “Inline form” that you previously built and duplicate it. Change its name to “wBounce” and save it! Make sure that the API and list ID were also copied in the Mailchimp tab, if not, then just copy and paste them from the “Inline form”. 

Also, in the first “Form” tab, I also change the names of ‘divs’ so the form can be styled easier. You can replace your “wBounce” form with the below code:

<div class="wbounce" style="text-align:center;"><p><h6>Like this post? Sign up for my monthly newsletter!</h6> Learn how to attract a relevant audience to your websites.</p> <div class="wbounceform">[text* your-name placeholder "First name"] [email* your-email placeholder "Your email"] [submit "Send"]</div></div>

save the form and copy it’s shortcode.

Now, go to the wBounce plugin:

Paste the shortcode in the wBounce content (screenshot above). I also always check the test mode option, so I can see the form when I am logged in.

That’s it. If you followed those steps, you should not only have your contact form integrated with your Mailchimp list, but also a basic inline form and an exit pop up! I hope you have enjoyed this “How to Optimise Your MailChimp Signup Process on Your WordPress Site in 30 minutes” tutorial and I wish you many subscribers!

Do you have questions or comments? If so, feel free to leave a message below!

The post How to Optimise Your MailChimp Signup Process on Your WordPress Site in 30 minutes. appeared first on #MagsTags.

Responsive web design certainly does not necessarily meet all business requirements all the time, and there are certain advantages and disadvantages associated with having a dedicated mobile website versus having a responsive website design that immediately and automatically changes to suit all devices and screen sizes for mobile browsing with ease.

Continue reading to learn more about the pros and cons of responsive web design, as well as the steps needed for SEO optimisation if you decide to go with a responsive website or separate URLs for your desktop website and mobile website. Below are also some CSS tips that you can use when implementing a responsive design.

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY

Nearly a decade ago, mobile traffic caught the attention of UX teams, and more consideration was given to smartphone users who were surfing the web on small devices. Therefore, mobile versions of desktop websites began popping up like mushrooms everywhere you turned!

Consequently, there were numerous e-commerce sites that now had more to manage: a desktop website and its mobile equivalent. Since management of two separate websites required more resources and time, especially when it came to optimisation, the market needed an alternative solution.

In 2010, a new concept came to the rescue: responsive web design. The approach, which was first described by a Boston-based designer and developer named Ethan Marcotte, started a web design revolution. In his A List Apart article, Marcotte gave a great explanation of responsive web design, describing the fundamentals of flexible foundation fluid grids, flexible images, and implementation of the media query. If you haven’t read it, I strongly advise doing so.

In the most simplified way, responsive web design can be defined as a design that fluidly changes and responds to fit any screen or device size.

So what are the SEO implications and overall pros and cons of implementing either a responsive website or creating a dedicated mobile website to work alongside your desktop website?

DESKTOP AND MOBILE WEBSITES

Having separate mobile and desktop sites simply means that we have the same or similar content on two separate URLs.

NewLook.com desktop and mobile sites

What about SEO?

Since Google uses a single index to cluster mobile and desktop pages together (although Google is currently working on a dedicated mobile index), it is necessary to use metadata to send signals to Google to make it clear which mobile URLs are associated with their equivalent desktop URLs. Otherwise, we will end up with duplicate content in the Google index.

In other words, having separate desktop and mobile sites simply means duplication of efforts when it comes to on-page SEO, linking, and page rank. Also, separate sitemaps need to be created, and the websites have to be managed across separate accounts within Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools).

SEO implementation

In order to correctly pair mobile and desktop sites, a page level implementation across both websites is required.

Step 1: On each desktop page that has an equivalent mobile page, add a rel=”alternate” tag pointing to the matching mobile URL.

This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site’s mobile pages. Below is the code the rel=”alternate” tag that should be placed on the desktop page.

<link rel=”alternate” media=”only screen and (max-width: 640px)” href =”http://m.domain.com/mobile-page-no1/”/>

Step 2:  On each mobile page that has an equivalent desktop page, add a link rel=”canonical” tag pointing to the matching desktop URL.

Using the canonical tag will help Google consolidate indexing and ranking signals. The tag also prevents confusion about possible duplicate content between mobile and desktop versions of a page. Below is the code for the canonical tag that should be placed on the mobile page:

<link rel=”canonical” href =”http://www.domain.com/desktop-page-no1/”/>

Step 3:  302 redirect the desktop URLs to the mobile equivalent URLs based on user agent detection.

But do not overdo it! It is important to avoid irrelevant redirects: if the content doesn’t exist in a mobile-friendly format, showing the desktop content is better than redirecting to an irrelevant page.

Step 4: XML Sitemaps

When all 3 steps are done and you conducted on-page SEO on both websites, it is time for the sitemaps creation. You not only have to generate an entirely new mobile XML sitemap, but also update the current desktop SEO sitemap too!

Full instructions how to create mobile sitemap can be found on Google’s Add mobile URL information to a Sitemap page, whilst how to update desktop XML sitemap can be found here.

Step 5: Verify your mobile and desktop websites in Webmaster Tools and submit the sitemaps.

Now, you will need to verify your desktop site as well as mobile website in Webmaster Tools (aka Brand New Shiny- Google Search Console)  if it is on a different hostname than your desktop website.

Advantages & disadvantages of separate Desktop and Mobile Websites

Advantages

• It gives a possibility to create a fully optimized mobile content- is your AOV (average order value) much higher on mobile? then you would definitely want to show more expensive items on the top of pages to your mobile users. With a separate mobile site, you can definitely do it!
• You can simplify the design to achieve an easy to navigate website- let’s take as an example expedia.com. Would I really want to see the latest offers in Vegas on the homepage when I am in Notting Hill and search for a hotel nearby? Sometimes keeping a mobile site separately allows companies to simplify the design to make it easier for a user to browse or search!

Disadvantages

• Additional server logic is required
• More difficult to optimise for all devices and screen size- it needs to support different templates or markup for the different devices and the templates need to be constantly updated
• Additional resources needed for mobile content management AND SEO (!) You have two separate web entities- that means building separate robots.txt, sitemaps and managing separate accounts within Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools).

RESPONSIVE DESIGN

Responsive design means that you will design just one website, and that single website will be able to automatically display perfectly as soon as it loads onto a large desktop monitor, a tiny smartphone screen, and everything in between.

JackWills.com- responsive-design, same URLs

What about SEO?

As an SEO professional, I cannot praise responsive design enough because all of your SEO efforts are going into one domain, so there is no duplication of efforts when it comes to on-page SEO, linking, and page rank. Plus, Google rewards mobile-friendly websites with greater organic search visibility.

However, there are a few things that we still should consider when working with responsive design.

Browsers build the DOM of a web document, parse its tree to render its HTML, and then interpret the CSS. The front-end development of responsive websites almost always requires displacing content with CSS to adapt it to various types of screens. Therefore, it is important to try to place code and rendered content in the same order.

Also, no links, content, or menus should be hidden on different versions of the responsive design. Those elements should be positioned sensibly. The “display: none” or “visibility: hidden” options shouldn’t be overused. And the use of negative numbers to position elements off the screen is also viewed as bad practice from an SEO perspective.

Advantages & disadvantages of Responsive Design

Pros

• It’s recommended solution and praised many times by Google
• No additional server logic is required
• It’s very flexible as it works across all devices
• No additional resources needed for mobile content management as Information architecture is the same

Cons

• The same information architecture- you cannot fully optimise content just for the mobile audience
• JavaScript control – you would need to have in mind JavaScript events like hover or click since the newest devices prompt the user to touch, tap, swipe etc.

Summary

I personally do not believe that responsive design is the definitive way to go for every website. There are too many factors outside of SEO that need to be taken into account when deciding upon the best approach. However, from an SEO point of view, I would love to see only responsive websites out there, as it would make our lives much easier!

Finally, since the end user should be at the centre of everything that we do, should we really serve all of the content that is found on advanced desktop websites like Booking.com or NewLook.com to a mobile user? Wouldn’t mobile users become overwhelmed with the amount of information they would have to go through while browsing the web’s advanced sites on small mobile devices? I think this is something we should definitely consider as well.

Do you have questions, comments, or thoughts on this subject? If so, feel free to leave a message below!

The post Desktop & Mobile vs. Responsive Websites. The Ultimate SEO Guide appeared first on #MagsTags.

Illustration by Filip Zywica

Many of us own more than one domain. Very often we use the same domain name registrar but want to host the site with a different company. Services like godaddy.com or name.com are great to search and buy new domain names, but if you are planning to use economy hosting with godaddy  think again. Your visitor will be able to make a cup of tea before a website page finishes loading!

This article will give you a step-by-step instruction how to point one of those domains to a folder located in your hosting with cPanel.

For the purpose of this post, I assume that you already have your domains registered with one domain registrar and you have a cPanel with a multiple website hosting option with a different hosting provider.

Hosting Supporting Multiple Websites

When you sign up for the hosting, your provider sets up your main domain as per your instructions. The main domain can be found on your left hand site (screenshot below) after logging in to cPanel. Your current site probably sits on this domain.

Now, let’s assume you want to have another website. With a multiple hosting option you don’t need to buy another hosting! You can host another site within the same account by using an Addon domain.

What is an Addon domain and where its files will be placed?

Addon Domain is an additional domain on your account. Its files are located in a folder (e.g. “bluestilton.com”) within “public_html” folder of you main domain.

The public_html folder is the root (or web root) of your main domain name (when a user browses your maindomain.com site, they really browse files within public_html).

Example:
You have just bought a domain name bluestilton.com that you want to add to your current hosting account as an addon, with your main domain called mymain.com. A user browsing to your site will see ‘bluestilton.com’ in the URL, but in fact will be browsing a specific folder under main domain, so all the bluestilton.com files will sit under a subfolder similar to /public_html/ bluestilton.com / (unless you specified otherwise).

Step 1. Create an Addon domain in cPanel

In order to create an addon domain, login in to the cPanel and go to Domains section. Click on “Addon domains”. The below page will load:

In ’New domain name” part, type the name of the domain you under which you want to host your new website, co in our example bluestilton.com. The other fields will be automatically filled in. I would suggest to leave them as they are as it follows best practice. Then just create a password (repeat it twice) and hit “Add domain”.

After a few seconds, the new domain should be shown in your list of Addon domains, e.g.

Step 2. Change nameservers of your new domain

Now it’s time to change the nameserver of the domain name you have just set up.

When you set up your hosting account, in your welcome email, your hosting provider would have also included the nameservers.

They will look something like:
NS1.EXAMPLE.COM
NS2.EXAMPLE.COM

You need to replace the nameservers of your ‘bluestilton.com’ at your domain registrar with two name servers provided by the hosting company.

Now, this bit is tricky, as I don’t know which company you use to buy domains. Since a GoDaddy is one of the most popular registrar, I will show how to change the nameservers at their example:

Log in to your Godaddy account, then click on My Account and the ‘Domains’ section, then search for the domain you want to point to new hosting (i.e. change the name servers). Click ‘Launch” on the right hand site:

Then a new window will pop up like this one (screenshot):

Go to the Nameserver sections and click “Manage”. Choose “custom option”. In the first line copy and paste the first nameserver from the email: NS1.EXAMPLE.COM and in the second line NS1.EXAMPLE.COM and save changes.

Note: After making that change, there might be 24-48 hours of DNS propagation time during which your website and email may not be available.

Now, congratulate yourself- you did another great job! Have a good sleep and visit your site the next day. Your new website should be available under your ‘bluestilton.com’ url.

The post How to Point a Domain to a Hosting with cPanel appeared first on #MagsTags.

Illustration by Filip Zywica

Understanding how visitors are getting to your site, what they are looking for and how they are interacting with your content is crucial if you want to become a successful blogger. Google Analytics (GA) is a great product able to answer for all those questions. Most importantly it’s completely FREE and incredibly easy to set up!

This article will step by step guide you through GA setup on your WordPress site/ blog. First, you will learn how to sign up to Google Analytics and how to create the tracking code. Then I will explain how to install this tracking code on your blog by using one of the 3 available options to choose from.

I. HOW TO SIGN-UP TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS

STEP 1: Sign up for Google Account

In order to signup for Google Analytics, you need an active Google Account (If you have a gmail, it means you already have one and you can use your gmail credentials to register and then use other Google products including GA). If you don’t have a Google Account, you will have to sign up for it- to do so, go to Google Sign Up Express page. After feeling the form, check the email you used to set up the account and follow the link to finish creating your Google account. Once you verify your email address, you will be able to access Google Account.

STEP 2: Sign up to Google Analytics

Now you have a Google Account, so you can register for GA. In order to do that, go to the Google Analytics Sign Up page and log in with your Google account login details.

Click ‘Sign up’ and you will land on a setting up page.

II. HOW TO CREATE GA TRACKING CODE

STEP 1. Set up your account

Now you are on the tracking code setting up page, which should look like the below:

Google Analytics- creating New Account

Since you want to create a tracking for your WordPress site, ‘website’  as the property to track. Then you can choose between a Classic and Universal Analytics. In the time of writing, Universal Analytics is in a beta version, but it is already stable and will give you many more options to choose from in the future, therefore I highly recommend to go for this option, however if you prefer the Classic version, the choice won’t influence further steps in the article.

STEP 2: Set up your property

Now, it’s time to share more information about your website- since it’s pretty self-explanatory- provide Website URL (if your site is available under www. version then provide that bit as well), then choose industry category and reporting time zone and hit Get Tracking ID button. A pop-up window with Google Terms and Conditions will appear- click ‘I agree” and you will be presented with you tracking code, similar to this one:

STEP 3. Select and copy the code

Now, Google ask you to copy and paste this code into every webpage you want to track. Do not close this page, leave it open and go to your website in a new tab (in this way, you can always get back to it).

III. HOW TO INSTALL GOOGLE ANALYTICS TRACKING CODE ON YOUR SITE

Since your have a WordPress site, the good news is that installing the tracking code is very easy. There are a few ways to install it and you can choose from one of the following options:

• Installing a plugin (easy option)
• Adding code to HEADER.PHP (more difficult)
• Adding code to functions.php

(only t Go to Appearance> Editor> and find your header.php file on the right- hand side and paste the code (from step xx) just after thetag.

OPTION 1: Installing a Plugin

You need to add GA tracking code to every single page, installing a plugin, will help you to do that in a very quick and easy way. There are quite a few plugins available although I recommend this plugin as it is very light and straight forward. In order to install it, go to your WordPress dashboard, then click on Plugins >Add New and search for Google Analytics. There will be many search results, but choose Google Analytics created by Kevin Sylvestre– install it and activate it. Then go to Settings> Google Analytics. Here you need to paste the property ID which can be found within your code created in step 5- it has this format ‘UA-XXXXXXXX-X’

OPTION 2: Adding code to header.php

If you do not want to install too many plugins on your site (too many plugins, can slow down your website), you can add the tracking code to the header file of your site. Head section (in header file) is used on every single page across your site. In order to add the code, go to Appearance> Editor and find your header.php file on the right- hand side, click on the file and paste the entire code which you copied in the step 5 just before the </head> tag and click Update the File button.

OPTION 3: Adding code to functions.php

I highly recommend to go for this solution ONLY if you have experience with php and you really know what you are doing!In order to add the code, go to Appearance> Editor and find your functions.php file on the right- hand side and click on the file. Then copy the below and paste it at the end of the file.

[php]// Include the Google Analytics Tracking Code (ga.js)
// @ http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/asyncUsageGuide.html
function google_analytics_tracking_code(){

$propertyID = ‘UA-XXXXX-X’; // GA Property ID

if ($options[‘ga_enable’]) { ?&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;script type="text/javascript"&amp;gt;
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘&amp;lt;?php echo $propertyID; ?&amp;gt;’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
&amp;lt;/script&amp;gt;

&amp;lt;?php }
}

// include GA tracking code before the closing head tag
add_action(‘wp_head’, ‘google_analytics_tracking_code’);

// OR include GA tracking code before the closing body tag
// add_action(‘wp_footer’, ‘google_analytics_tracking_code’);
[/php]

After that do not forget replace the UA-XXXXX-X with your property ID, which you found it STEP 5 of this tutorial!

STEP 6: SAVE THE CODE IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Whatever method you chose, you should have your tracking installed! Now, go back to the other tab, where your tracking code is generated and click ‘Save” (from step 5). It takes up to 48hrs for Google to recognise that the tracking has been installed.

Now, relax and check in two days if your tracking code is working correctly. Btw, job well done! You deserved a nice treat now:)

P.S. If you come across any issue or something is not clear enough in this post, please leave a comment below and I will provide more details!

The post How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress appeared first on #MagsTags.

Illustration by Filip Zywica

If you are reading this post, you are probably just about to set up your own blog or a company website (yes, WordPress is pretty great for that too!). There are quite a few publishing platforms available out there. WordPress, Blogger, Typepad or Weebly.com and, no doubt, they will be all assuring you that they can help you make your blog outstanding.

Having a few years of experience in setting up blogs for my clients and knowing technical functionalities and limitations of some of the platforms, I can say without any hesitation that WordPress (WP) is the best solution for professional blogs or small companies’ sites currently available on the market.

Here are the 5 main reasons behind WordPress’ still growing popularity and why so many of successful bloggers choose the platform as they preferred publishing solution:

1. Flexibility

WordPress gives you 2 options to set up your site:

• You can host your site at WordPress.com
and let WordPress handle the technical bits, however you won’t be able to add plugins, install custom themes or edit your HTML, OR

• You can host a WordPress installation on your own server
I highly recommend the second method as this one gives you much more control- you will be able to edit your themes and install as many plugging as you wish. It also means that you own your content and your site can’t be closed for whatever reasons Worpdress.com might have!

2. Simplicity

WordPress has been designed for users without any technical background. It was built to make it possible for you to get online and get publishing, quickly. Previously mentioned WordPress.com solution can be set up literally in 3 minutes!

3. It’s free!

WordPress is completely, entirely free! It is licensed under the GPL, which means that you are free to use WordPress in any way you choose: install it, use it, modify it, and distribute it. If you decide to go for self-hosting solution, your only cost will be the monthly hosting fee.

4. Themes and Plugins

WordPress gained its popularity thanks to its simplicity, flexibility and no cost of run. It currently powers almost 20% of the web. Since its popularity continues to grow, WordPress gathers a large community of theme designers and plugin developers that want to be part of this incredible open-source movement. Thanks to that, we have an enormous amount of themes and plugins to choose from.

• Themes Customisation

As default, WordPress installation comes with a few free themes (layouts) built by Automattic team (organisation behind WP). You can also browse among many other themes on WordPress.org and download it for free!

Those of you, who search for more professional looking site or customised solution, can visit ThemeForest.net, a directory of carefully selected premium themes from the best developers currently out there! You can buy beautifully designed themes from as little as 35 USD. Also, an ability to customise many of those themes makes your design possibilities limitless. Digital Purified has been also built on a theme bought through that site.

• Enormous Amount of Plugins

After installing the theme, you might realize that you need some additional functionalities that are not currently available on your site. Have you heard that famous Steve Jobs’ catchphrase “There’s an app for that”? Well, you can easily change it to “there’s a plugin for that” when it comes to WordPress!

WordPress.org owns a plugin directory that can enormously extend your blog functionalities! You can choose anything from complex galleries, sophisticated sliders, through forums, social media widgets, calendars or forms and many others to make the most customised site!

5. The Best Platform for SEO

I am an SEO specialist therefore having a website which can be easily optimised towards Google or other search engines is crucial for me. It is actually the first thing I analyse when choosing publishing platforms for my clients. I can honestly say, that WordPress makes SEO so much easier!

If you are not an SEO professional yourself, I recommend you to watch this video of Matt Cutts from Google

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-for-bloggers/

where he recommends WordPress as one of the best bogging platforms! There are a few very good plugins that I usually advise to install in order to make your site more Google friendly, you can read more about it in this post:

The summary

In simple terms WordPress is the mother of all the platforms. It is most advanced solution yet runs on the most simplified interface. The fact that it currently powers one fifth of the entire web and is used by most successful bloggers, allows me to recommend it without any hesitation! If you are still not sure, just give it a go for a few days. I am sure you will enjoy the flow!

P.S. If you have any questions, or need some additional advise on choosing WP, please leave the comment below and I would be happy to help!

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