Does Google care about the position of a web page on your server?
Does it make a difference if a web page is in the root directory of
your website or in a sub directory? How does your URL structure
influence the position of your web pages in Google’s search results?

Trailing slashes and sub directories

A popular assumption is that Google prefers pages that are in the root directory of a website.

If an URL contains many trailing slashes (meaning the page is placed in a sub-sub-directory) then Google might not think that the page is important in relation to the other pages.

Although this statement is often repeated in SEO forums, it is probably not true.

The visibility of a web page counts, not its position

If a web page is linked throughout your website and if the page has inbound links then the web page will be indexed and ranked by Google without any problems.

Most web pages on today’s websites are created dynamically and the URL that is displayed in a web browser presents only a virtual site structure that is not really available on the server.

As there are no real folders on the server, search engines won’t find a valuable ranking signal if they look at things like presence or absence of directories.

What does this mean for your website?

If you want to show search engines that a page on your website is important, link to it from many other pages of your website so that it can easily be found.

A page that gets many links (both from your own website and from other websites) will get the attention that it deserves from Google’s indexing robot.

When you should care about the structure of your URLs

1. URL stripping can cause problems

Rumor
has it that Google uses URL stripping to index web pages. That means that Google shortens the path to an URL to find new pages on a site.
For example, “www.example.com/folder/keyword.htm“ would be shortened to “www.example.com/folder/“.

If you use dynamically created URLs then you should make sure that all virtual folders return real web pages a “404 not found” pages. Otherwise, Google might think that you have many faulty pages and/or that your website has a low quality.

2. Shorter URLs can be better for your website visitors

Although most web surfers don’t pay attention to the URL in the browser address bar, shorter URLs can enhance the user experience. Shorter URLs are easier to remember and they can improve the direct type-in traffic.

3. Short URLs get more clicks

A search marketing study found out that web surfers clicked short URLs twice as often as long URLs in Google’s search results. Long URLs are cut off in Google search engine result pages. Web surfers cannot see where they are going to go and this can decrease the click-through rate.

4. The URLs of your web pages can contain your keywords

The words that appear in the URL of a web page can influence the position of the web page for these words. For that reason, it can make sense to rewrite your URLs so that they include the keywords for which you want to have high rankings.

Article from the weekly newsletter of IBusiness Promoter. Download a free copy here.

What is more important to your Business?

 Long term
relationships or long term traffic?

In marketing online there is a difference. Social media
marketing is about being in a conversation. You have to engage your customers.
This is a long term commitment that will pay off long term dividends as you
establish yourself as an expert in the field and network yourself into
relationships. Stop working it and you are quickly forgotten.

Search engine optimization builds Long term traffic but it takes time to get established
and work to get good rankings.

With this article I will try to give you a jump start to the
types of activities you can do to increase traffic and to increase your
rankings in the SERP’s.

SEO is based on 3
principals.

1. TOPIC: Every page must have a singular topic with copy that supports the
topic. This includes related keywords being used on the page. The title of the
page is what establishes the topic.
2. REPUTATION: Each link from within your site must use the keyword that
defines your topic when it links to the page. If you link using the wrong word
you confuse the engines.
3. CONFIRMATION: Links from 3rd party sites must use the same keyword topic when
linking to a page. This confirms for the search engines what the page is about.

• 
  Spend the time needed to get the right keywords. Write titles, descriptions and
  related keywords for each page.
• 
  Install a text link at the bottom of each page linking to a site map. On the
  site map link every page topic to the appropriate page.
•  
• On all links that go to password protected pages or pages
  that don’t need to be found: IE contact us, search and terms and conditions,
  put a <nofollow> tag from every
  page. This stops the engines from giving the Google juice to them.

Now the work begins.

1. Set up and make a commitment to blog. Something like blog.yourdomain.com Add at least
2-3 posts per week. Here are the minimum requirements for writing a blog post.

Match the SEO plan pages/keywords to
the topic of the post.

1. The post must have a title
   that includes but does not start with the keyword phrase.
2. The post must be at least 100
   words.
3. The keyword Phrase must be
   included in the post.
4. The keyword phrase can not
   start or end any paragraph.
5. Must be conversational.

2. Set up a linked in account. Use the links in it to
link back to your site. Use a keyword, not just the default my website. Here is
a sample – mine. http://www.linkedin.com/in/terrylmickelson  Download the
toolbar. Search your contacts from the tool bar and invite everyone. In a week
or 2 you will have a decent size network. Start searching for people in the
businesses you want to connect to. Want to reach the CEO of ReMax or Intel? Search and
ask.

3. Create a Facebook page and invite
friends/family to be your friend. Add your blog’s rss feed so that every time
you post to it, it appears on Facebook. Makes it “in your face” book.

4. Search for blogs at http://blogsearch.google.com/  Make a comment on related blogs. Where it asks for
your name, use a keyword and link back to your site. If you make good
intelligent comments that get you in the conversation webmasters have no
problem with this. Spam them and you are wasting your time.

5. Sign up for twitter. Put your twitter address in every email sig file. Search for others
in the industry. Follow them. Tweet frequently letting your personality come
out. Don’t try sell anything or put links to your site in all of your messages.
Set this up on your phone and tweet a couple times per day. This is about
building relationships 140 characters at a time.  http://twitter.com/pageviews

6. Post to Craigs List http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites 
Pick a county, pick a city write an ad. Make it fun. Tell people about what you
have to offer. Post in the appropriate section(s). Make each ad unique or they get flagged and you get
banned.

7. Rinse and repeat. Depending on how fast you write, you should be able to
start driving a bunch of traffic and links to your site within a couple of
weeks at no cost other than 10+ hours per week.

These instructions are not meant to be all inclusive of every site and were originally written for a company that is in the business of Real Estate Auctions.