I’m sure it is not your first time to use the internet, so I would assume that you have seen the characters that is always shown in the address box at the top center part of your web browser.

Ever wondered what those characters are? Well that is commonly known as the Internet Address of a website or site address. To be more technical the appropriate name would be the URL. The URL or (Uniform Resource Locator) refers to the resource or address of a web page in the web. The URL may be written in different ways according to the web designers’ desire as long as addressing is limited within the components of a Uniform Resource Locator.

These components are:
Host(server) – the component known as the host functions as an identifier of the site address of the computer that contains the file being displayed. This site address can either be a domain name or an IP address. Example of these are as follows:

1.a. Domain Name: http://www.webdesign.com
1.b. IP address: http://162.220.26.46

2. Protocol – This concerns the communication method when accessing resources on the internet.  

There are several communication methods available depending on the web user or web designers ‘choice. These are:

  2.a . HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) – considered as the most common method to establish communication between client and server.

  2.b. NNT (Network News Transport) – establishes communication to USENET news articles.

  2.c. Mailto – it allows a web user to send and email message due to the fact that Mailto calls on the SMTP or the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.

  2.d. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – this is usually involved in file transfers between computers in different locations utilizing the internet. This protocol allows you to download a file from a server to be directly stored in your hard disk.

Filename or path – in web design we know that we do not only construct one web page, to have a fully interactive web site several pages had to be created. Filename here refers to the actual filename that we have given our web page. A web page with the filename of index.html will always be interpreted as the homepage or the first page of the web site. Other web pages may be accessed using their filename an example of which is:

 http://www.webdesign.com/web-design-articles/web-design-tips-success/web_design.html

Suffix – one final piece in the URL structure is the suffix which pertains to a domain names’ category representation. Among these categories are; commercial (.com), network (.net), nonprofit organization (.org), educational (.edu) and governmental (.gov). There are also suffixes that pertain to country location such as United States (.us), Canada (.ca) and Philippines (.ph).
To fully understand let us dissect the URL:

 http://www.webdesign.com/web-design-articles/web-design-tips-success/web_design.html

http here is the protocol
www is the server
webdesign.com is the domain name with suffix of commercial
web-design-articles is a directory folder
web-design-tips-success is also a directory folder
web_design.html is the file name.

So for web designers and SEO’s out there before moving on to learning the advanced knowledge the basics must always be understood, then and only then that you will be able to efficiently perform your duty as a web designer or an SEO.

When we design web pages we always ask this first question; “What is this design for”? If the answer is known then what? Well, it would be prudent for us to identify to which type of web site our design should belong. As to date there are seven classifications of web design or web sites and these are:

Personal Web sites – as the name implies the content of the web site is all about the designer. The designs are usually attributed to the web designers’ expressions. Its content are mostly information about the web page owner and it usually are for the purpose of informing friends or family about just everything or anything.

Community Web Sites – Usually viewed as a forum whose purpose is to create a central location for people with the same interests converge on one single location. Its purpose is to interact and usually share ideas about topics that are of interest to the community. This would be a great place to locate those all-needed opinions when you cannot decide. Here you can see what other people in the community think about a specific topic. Also you will be able to interact with a variety of people with different mindsets thus helping you decide efficiently by weighing the pro’s and cons of a specific situation. Here you may also find help in your troubleshooting problems may it be as complex as troubleshooting  your laptop to as simple as getting a good resource for a dish that you have always dreamed of cooking.

Commercial Sites – probably the most popular classification. Web pages are designed primarily to support businesses of a company or a corporation. Target audience for this type are potential customers, investors and even potential employees. Due to the inherent characteristics of these kind of websites most commercial sites employ SEO services in order to make their web site appear on the first page of a search engine result. The importance of this? Well let’s face it average internet users only view websites that are within the first page of the search result, rarely do we find internet surfers view the third or even the millionth search result. The benefit would then be an increase in potential clients for the site if such website is ranked number 1 or even just within the first page of the search engine’s search result.

Entertainment Web Sites – its main purpose? Of course to entertain. This type of web design usually includes games, interactive images, music and even articles such as entertainment news.

Informational Web Sites  – a classification that includes the government, education, news and the non-profit organization sectors. It even includes in this classification the religious sector. The purpose of the site is to inform its target audiences, like for example in a government website its target audience would be its constituents, giving information of the processes of the government and updating the audiences on new laws and policies being implemented.

Navigational Web Sites – Another of the popular web site design. Often used but most of the time ignored. These are web sites that helps its audience navigate or find their way around the vast internet universe. A popular example of this kind of web sites are the search engine web sites.

Artist-centered web site – This is maybe the most selfish type of design out there as its purpose is for the appreciation of the designer himself. As long as the designer is satisfied with his or her design then the web site is considered to be a success.

If your in need of a new website design, contact the designers at SEO Positive Limited for help.

First of all, let me explain what a “nofollow” link is. A nofollow link is a link to your web page from another web page on your site or on another website, it has a tag put on the link which means that although users and search engines are able to follow the link through to the receiving page, the link will not pass and pr (PageRank) through the link to the other web page.

So now we know what a nofollow link is, do we think they are worth doing when looking to SEO a website?

Well the first reason for building links that are nofollow is to get the search engines in to your site as many times as possible. As I mentioned above, search engines can still follow the link through your site, they just dont pass any power through. Every time a search engine goes through your website, they take back any updated information to the main server which in turn will rank your site with any new updates attached to it.

The second reason you will want nofollow links is because humans can still follow the links through to the receiving web site. This will in turn drive related traffic through to your website, these people may find your website interesting enough to link to it also.

As a final conclusion, I would say any link to your web page is a good link, be it a nofollow link or a dofollow link. They all add up to bringing your site relevance, and traffic.

For more information on how to build links to your website, contact SEO Positive today!

Google have already revolutionised the way that the internet is used. Not only can we search for text, but we cansearch for images through the Google search engine. That not being enough for Google the internet giant, they bring out Google Earth, which allows users to scan through millions of images that have been put togeather to create a massive library. These pictures are taken from a satellite in space. It allows you to zoom in and out on these images, and is always updating its image library with new images.

Google now has revolutionised the online world once again with their new Google street view, which allows you to view 360-degree images of the road outside of any UK Address. This is an update of Googel earth, allowing users to view any road of the UK in an up close, 360-degree angle. Although this application is very usefull for many, others have not found it so entertaining, and Google has been asked to take certain images down, and blank others out for privacy reasons. The news in the UK with regards to this new venture by Google, headlines; “Google Street View Gets Slapped”.

With technology like this, Google may offend some people, and get somenegative press, like it has done already in the UK, however I have had a play on Street View, and like many first time visitors, the first thing I looked for way my own house, and the surrounding areas. What fun this bit of kit is. One thing is for sure, there is no hiding from the almighty Google now. Who knows what they may be able to bring out in the near future. Is live streaming video possible?

Will this bear any inluence of the way people search, or have an impact on SEO. The simple answer is, no one knows what Google will bring out next, however for now, this has no immediate effect on the way that people will search for their products or services on the world wide web.

SEO Positive have negotiated an optimisation deal with a major name in the health and spa industry to optimise their website. SEO Positive Limited are delighted to have such a brand come on board for search engine optimisation with us. This really does show that SEO Positive Limited are proving to be a major player in their field of optimisation.

SEO Positive Limited are now offering some of the most advanced website design services in the UK thanks to the expansion of their creative team a few weeks back. For more information on our SEO Services, or website design services call an experienced consultant.

Froogle is a price comparison website that has been offered by Google for some time now. If your looking for a product, this site can help you find the best for your money.

A good thing about Froogle, is that it allows you to review a product for future searches of that product. This concept seems to work very well.

Flash website are designed and built in a web program called Adobe. Although Flash website usually look “flash”, expensive, sexy, and advanced. They are actually the hardest type of website to have optimised. For this reason alone many people and businesses actually avoid having a flash site.

It is ok to have an element of the website in flash, for example a “flash banner” at the top of the website, or a “flash logo”, but my advice is to leave it there if you want to optimise the website.

Although performing SEO on a flash website is not easy, it is certainly possible, we have optimised a number of flash site onto the first page of the search engines of our clients desired key terms, you just need to know what to do (And we do).

DMOZ is a powerful website directory which is also known as Open Directory Project. This directory is managed by independent editors, and is very well respected by all search engines. It would be a good idea to submit you website to this directory, however I wouldn’t hold your beath for acceptance into the directory as it is widely known to be very timely to get accepted due to the sheer volume of submissions on a daily basis. Remember all editors are volunteers, so they only edit the directory in their spare time.

A very good directory to be included in for SEO purposes.

Deep linking is a term used for linking to other pages on a website rather than the homepage. The way to think of this, is to think of a family tree type graph. The homepage is at the top, and it then stems down to the pages that it links to directly, then those pages then stem down to other pages that they link to and the homepage does not link to, etc. You can now see why this is call “Deep Linking”.

It is much harder to gain links for other pages in a website rather than the homepage, especially when looking to gain links from dirrectories, however a successful SEO Company will know where to get links for these pages from experience.

If you need help gaining links for internal pages of a website, contact SEO Positive Limited.

A dead link is basically what it’s name emplies. It is a link that is pointing to a page that has either been deleted, moved, or renamed. To avoid this issue, you can quickly perform a simple 301 redirect to the new page to that users and search engines are able to follow the link to the new page.