Blogs Permalinks & Seo Htaccess File
And another week is underway and probloggers are busy updating, researching as well as setting up new blogs. Which brings me to my daily post here at My Affiliate Programs and that is the methods I use when creating a new “blog based” site. As I have mentioned I like to use the wordpress blogging platform, it is both powerful and easy to use and easy to install. Not only that but wordpress is used by many and well supported meaning if you run into trouble you will be able to find plenty of help in various places online.
Blog Site Structure – Permalinks & Folders
There are several elements that need to be addressed when setting up a wordpress blog, first it is important to understand “the structure” of a blog site. When I launch a new site I often create or “install” the blog within a folder or directory I call “blog” …. go figure. I then have some savvy coder create a static page based on my wordpress theme (a wordpress theme is simply the template that drives the look and feel of a blog). This way I am able to craft static pages that blend seamlessly into my site which gives me the flexibility to link outside my blog structure. This is good if you also want to include articles or reciprocal links pages.
When creating new sites I always look for a reseller hosting account or something similar, I also double check to insure that my host has “fantastico” installed, fantastico makes setting up a wordpress blog (as well as dozens of other opensource scripts) easy. No need to worry about setting up databases and passwords with fantastico, it will be done for you automatically. Now if you already have hosting but don’t have fantastico don’t fret, the install of wordress is straight forward and easy to understand.
To WWW or Not
After you have installed your wordpress blog then you will want to log in and check several of the options, first notice on the wordpress “options” page you have about 6 or 7 choices. Two of these choices are:
Wordpress address (URI):
Blog Address (URI):
Notice what is present in these fields, usually it will just be the domain address without www. At this point you need to decide which address you will promote for your site as you have to choices. Here are the various options for my-affiliate-programs.com
www.my-affiliate-programs.com
or
my-affiliate-programs.com
The reason this is important is that you will want anyone that links to your set over time to only link to one of these address. If you always send people to the www. version of your site but you have not added the www to the Wordpress address (URI) and Blog Address (URI) fields then the pages within the blog will point to the address without the www. This splits your link population up as well as your pagerank having a negative effect in the search engines.
The second aspect of the site structure is “permalinks”, understand that blogs are dynamic and the pages they generate out of the blog are dynamic as well. Search engines favor and have an easier time indexing “static” pages. By incorporating permalinks you will give your webpages that are static and easier for the search engines to index, these pages are also more search engine friendly because they often contain the words of your page within the page names themselves.
Without Permalinks: www.yourdomain.com/blog/?p=1
With Permalinks: http://www.my-affiliate-programs.com/blog/index.php/2006/03/seo-tip-permalinks/
As you can see the first address contains a question mark and is far less search engine friendly. You can find a good how to guide for setting up permalinks here.
Part two of this post which will contains some useful plugins as well as a neat little hack which will allow you to easily add meta descriptions to your post.
Continue part two
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Posted in Best Wordpress SEO Plugins Wordpress Plugin Newsletter, Wordpress SEO Optimization, SEO Web Site Optimization
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December 5th, 2006 at 11:27 am
You definitely have to find a niche and build a theme site to reflect what you are selling. Doing a presell instead of a hard sell is always better. The customer doesn’t feel pressured and you seem more sincere to them. Finding a niche is easy if you have a passion or hobby, but if you don’t, there are always places online to search for a niche. There are numerous niche membership sites that offer products you can sell without creating them yourself. Good luck affiliating.
Sincerely,
Cheryline Lawson
www.niche-resale.com