SEO is an important aspect of most small business marketing strategies. Getting your small business website ranked well on the major search engines such as Google, BING and Yahoo for important & desired keywords/keyphrases has become one of the best avenues for success over the years, so much so that the SEO game in general has gotten extremely competitive. Because of this, it is extremely important to follow “best SEO practices” as much as possible when it comes to your websites SEO.
One aspect of “best SEO practices” is implementing proper webpage redirects to avoid having any dead pages on your website, which are known as 404 errors. These 404 errors most commonly occur when you remove a page of content from your site (the page no longer exists), or alter a pages url structure in some way (change it from one url to another). Having 404 errors can hurt your websites overall SEO ranking, and in some cases depending on the site/situation if ignored can snowball to become a widespread problem causing your SEO rankings to plummet (this is especially true for sites with dynamic pages or temporary pages). To avoid this problem it is important you keep on-top of your redirects on your website, making sure that any non existing pages, or moved pages are being 301 redirected to the most relevant existing page in each case.
What is a redirect?
“A redirect is a way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested… A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.”
http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
Lucky for you most website platforms out there have a 301 redirect solution to help deal with redirects on your website (some solutions are easier to implement/use then others).
WordPress: Simple 301 Redirects
PHP: How To Redirect with PHP
Java: 301 Redirect in Java
As well as some other redirect options!
By keeping up on your 301 redirects, you can not only provide your website users with a more enjoyable, error-free experience, but it can also help keep your site following best SEO practices, helping ensure you don’t get penalized by the major search engines which can negatively impact your rankings and work against your other SEO activities.
—
WordJack Media provides a wide range of website design and online marketing solutions to clients throughout Canada and the US, including Collingwood ON, Ottawa ON, Barrie ON, Miami FL, Lakeland FL, Orlando FL, Charlotte NC, Hickory NC, Asheville NC and more. Contact WordJack Media today for more information about how we can help your business win on the web!