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Most SEO advice tends to focus primarily on link building techniques, on-page factors, and search engine trends. This is all very good information, but what about Web Hosting? Every now and then neighborhoods are mentioned, but never with enough emphasis.

Not all servers are created equal and many are not search engine friendly. It would be pointless to waste time and money building links and refining code when your website is being hosted from a slow, unreliable server that is full of spammy neighbors (who you WILL be associated with by the search engines). Servers are one of the cheapest components of a website, but they are very important.

Here are a few things to consider before you choose a server.

• Does the web host have 301 Redirect capabilities? This is absolutely necessary to avoid the possibility of duplicate content penalties.
• The uptime of your server is vital. There are several providers that guarantee their servers to be up 99.9% of the time.
• Your IP Class can and will be used by search engines to determine the quality of your neighborhood. Your web host should be analyzed to determine if there are any spam sites associated with its IP Class.
• Does the web host have clean name servers? You want your website to be associated with others who have clean names.
• Look for a server that provides each reseller with their own IP addresses. Hosting on a server with large amounts of sites using one IP address will significantly increase your chances of being associated with spammers.
• Does the web host support the Date Modified attribute? Search engines like to know when your pages are being modified and the Date Modified attribute makes this possible.
• Choose a server with a fast response time. This will allow search engines to crawl further into your website because they are not spending time waiting for pages to load.

Services like SEO Certified Servers are available to help you determine if your server meets these criteria. They check and certify servers for the sole purpose of SEO.

I think that it would be wise to take a closer look at your web host before launching your SEO campaign.

Good Luck
Paul

I have been a gamer most of my life (I’m 25), but now that I spend so much of my time in front of a computer the last thing I want to do in my spare time is play a video game. Lately I’ve been trying to spend my spare time working on my little Cessna that’s been under extensive repairs for the better part of year now (thanks to Hurricane Katrina) and it is finally ready to fly. I really hope that the weather will be good enough this weekend for a test flight because I am tired of day dreaming about my weekends that were spent flying. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

If you are developing a new website and are looking for an easy way to manage your files then I would recommend for you to stay far far away from Content Management Systems (CMS).

CMS systems come in 2 flavors that you can buy like Mambo, Drupal, Typo3 etc. and the ones that are custom in-house packages of web development companies. While these may sound tempting to use I recommend you stay away from these solutions.

Most web development companies that do not offer SEO services boast about how their custom CMS system is a better return on investment because (insert reason here)… The reason these companies push their CMS systems are because a CMS system transfers the burden of website management over to the customer and off of the web development company. The faster the burden is pushed off the quicker they can move onto another project. Websites built with these types of companies tend to be more cookie cutter and are a terrible return on investment due to their restrictive nature. If you desire service after the sale a web development company with a CMS package is usually a bad bet.

Most of the companies who use CMS claim that they provide SEO, but all it takes is one look at their system to realize that they are clueless. The nature of a CMS makes it difficult to apply the on-page changes that are essential to search engine visibility. These systems are typically designed to mass produce websites (dynamic pages) and they are usually a sales gimmick.

I have yet to encounter a CMS that was SEO friendly. Many clients have requested for me to optimize their site but I tend to stay away from these types of systems due to our lack of control of many on-page factors and the level of difficulty in learning a new CMS package.

So what is the answer?
How about Macromedia Dreamweaver or Contribute. Why spend so much time and money developing your very own CMS when one already exists that is easy to use and search engine friendly? If your client absolutely has to have a CMS, just give them a Dreamweaver crash course. I have taught many people how to use Dreamweaver in under an hour.

I am not saying that CMS is a bad idea it’s just that one has yet to be designed by an SEO. Don’t turn away a client because of their CMS just be aware that they will restrict your optimization efforts.

Link building is considered the most important element to the success of your website. All links are NOT created equal, therefore you’ve got to choose the best links to focus your efforts on. Creativity is the key. The following tips are just some of the many ways that I like to use to build backlinks.

1. Interesting or humorous content is the most obvious way to get backlinks. Humor spreads like wild fire and is a great way to build backlinks to your site.
2. Create content (articles, etc.) for other sites in your neighborhood. Links from relevant websites are the most desirable.
3. Tools are a great way to get others to link to your site. If you know of or can create a useful tool for others to use, you should make them available on your website.
4. Adding blogs, forums, and reviews (on your site) can create communities that will link to your site. Many people are addicted to forums and blogs, and they can be used for more than just generating links.
5. Create online contests that will benefit others, and put them on your website. These will improve your reputation and increase your traffic!
6. Post industry related news. This can also make your site appear more authoritative and trust worthy.
7. Identify other sites that would benefit from your success and ask (it never hurts to ask) them for a link. For instance, an e-commerce site should always try to get their suppliers to link to them because an increase in sales will benefit both parties.
8. Look for industry specific directories that will link to you without requiring a reciprocal link.
9. Local directories are often overlooked when building links. These links are usually easier to get listed on.

Be aware that some backlinks are either undesirable or just not worth the effort. Avoid links from pages that link to you from frames or contain the “nofollow” tag because they will not provide any benefit, and also avoid the easy to get links from spammy websites. And absolutely do not use link farms because they will get you banned from the search engines.

Link building, while time consuming, will deliver the most reward for your optimizing efforts. Use these tips along with a little common sense and creativity, and you may eventually develop your own system for getting those good links.

Dynamic websites are typically more difficult to optimize for search engines, but there are ways that they can be optimized. Real SEO’s article on this subject is very good.

The following are four techniques that every SEO should apply to their dynamic websites.

1. Use plug-in software that will change your existing dynamic URLs to static ones.
2. Re-configure your servers to convert your URLs that contain query strings into ones that the search engines can index. For Apache servers, use the mod rewrite and for cold fusion servers replace “?” with “/” and pass the value to the URL.
3. Write CGI/Perl scripts that will take all the information prior to the query string and put the rest equal to a variable.
4. Create a search engine friendly, static webpage to link to your dynamic pages. Use appropriate alt and title tags on your static page, and be sure to follow all of the search engine guide lines before submitting your static pages along with the dynamic pages.

As these tips point out, creating SEO friendly URLs is critical to optimizing dynamic websites, and using them will undoubtedly improve the search rankings of your dynamic site.