SEO Experiment: The Experiment Begins Today.

In preparation for this experiment, I installed the Advanced Permalinks Plugin without really understanding what it did and why it was important. I updated the permalinks structures by following the default instructions included in the options screens of the plugin. Then I went to Wikipedia.

PERMALINKS are almost exclusive to the blog world. They exist to keep all the links within the website active, very important if  the content will be bookmarked by visitors. Permalinks allow for the structure of your website to remain dynamic, while maintaining the integrity of the links to your contant, and are the backbone of blogging.If you bookmark content that gets archived, you will still reach that bookmarked page regardless of whether you use :

http://digitalapplejuice.com/the-tao-of-i-t-al-1/

or

http://digitalapplejuice.com/?p=150

With much trepidation, I installed & activated All in One SEO Plugin. I was afraid of screwing everything up. Like the Permalinks Plugin, I really didn’t understand what this one did or why i needed it.

The truth is that I had bigger issues to deal with.
I have been with ANS hosting/midphase for years. When all my sites went down Dec 30th and remained down for more than 24 hours, I came to realize that for the last half of 2007, not a week went by without me emailing tech support to say that the site was down, the mail server was down, mySql was down. Granted they were often fixed within hours at the most, at least until New Year’s Eve Day.

I started to research a new web host service. Most of the web host review sites list Midphase or ANS hosting within their top 10. That leads me to believe that their rankings were inaccurate at best. then i found WebHostingJury.

Their Midphase review was accurate- detailing the ups and downs and referred to recent incidents I could attest to. I chose Polurnet WebHosting because they best filled my needs considering my budget. They are ranked third, the reviews were great and so far, their customer support has been superb. And it has not been down once since we signed up.

Of course then we had to migrate the site.

And then my cats got sick.
Then i got sick.
And i do have to work.
January sneaked by and now its February.

Yesterday I started filling out the Goals & Site Assessment Worksheets.

The Goals Worksheet is better geared towards a vanity or retail site but helped the publisher and I clarify our game plan. The checklist about Website Features made us realize that we need to refine how the visitor can experience our site- we have decided to add an option for a pdf download on each page, add the link to the search function (though it comes implemented in the Wordpress Revolution Magazine Layout by Brian Gardner) and are discussing the possibility of a forum. We are also trying on a new site description: "Almanac of MAC Apps for the Digital Artist" since we write mostly about apps and books produced by companies other than Adobe.

This is included on my website now.	This is a goal for the site in the future.	Rating (Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor)
	no		Corporate history, news, and press releases
YES			Executive Author bios
YES		Good to excellent	Product and service information
YES		Good	Online purchasing/donation
		not applicable	Support for existing customers/clients/students
	no	do we incorporate a newsfeed?	News and current events
YES			Articles, white papers
			Religious, philosophical, or political content
YES		**Comment Forms	Online request for information (RFI) forms
	no	** Its implemented- not used.	Login for restricted information
YES		Excellent	Instructions for making contact offline or via email
		N/A	Directions, locations, hours, etc. for brick-and-mortar location
	no	should we consider a forum?	Ways for community to connect with each other on the site (forums, etc.)
x		Good to excellent	Educational materials
x	no	Fair	Links to other resources
		N/A	Fun, games, or entertainment
	no		A strong brand identity
YES		Creative Spirit Which I am redesigningfror better promotion	Art or craft portfolio
		N/A	Information specifically for geographically local visitors
	no	** Install PDF Plugin or Wp-Print Plugin	Software or documents available for download
YES			Media (pictures, audio, video) available for viewing/downloading
YES			Site map
YES		**All articles stay online after posting	Archived content
	no	Its scripted but not loaded. Easy Enough to Implement	Site search function

 

The Site Assessment Worksheet taught me the importance of the elements of a webpage:

Home Page URL: digitalapplejuice.com
Yes/No
yes	This page has a unique HTML page title.
yes	The HTML page title contains my target keywords.
yes	This page contains 200 or more words of HTML text.
yes	HTML text on this page contains my exact target keywords.
yes	This page can be reached from the home page of the site by following HTML text links (not pull-downs, login screens, or pop-up windows).
no	The HTML text links from other pages on my site to this page contain my target keywords.

Hmmm. Page title vs Post Title. Got it. The All in One SEO Plugin allows me to customize the page title for each post to include keywords etc. I went to the plugin’s homepage to read the explanation of each element it can control and I got it. I spent some time customizing the page titles across our website yesterday. Since then,  we almost doubled our visitors.

Ultimately, we came to understand just how much work we have to do to increase our visibility.

The experiment begins today.
February 1st, 2008.
90 days.
1 hour a day.

 

Keep in mind that a lot of the process I am going through doesn’t directly apply to websites that are not dynamic but most of the concepts are similar. Please backup your entire website AND your MySql Database before you ever mess with Permalinks or rewrites.