The other common use for Sharepoint is for document management. Most companies create all kinds of documents and keeping them organized is always a problem. For an online business most of the documents that they have will be electronic anyway which makes using software like Sharepoint to manage them a good option. It can also be used to manage images of paper documents so that all of a companies information can be organized on one system.

One of the most underused aspects of the software is its ability to be used as a collaboration tool, companies are not using this nearly as much as they could. With SharePoint software information can be shared easily between groups of people so that they can work on a project together, even if they are not actually in the same location. For an online business this can be very valuable since many online businesses rely on outsourcers located in many different places. With Sharepoint they can all work on the same project together sharing the information that is necessary to get the job done.

Another useful thing that can be done with Sharepoint software is that it can be used for enterprise search and business intelligence purposes. This basically means that it can be used to find the information that your company needs. This could be information that is buried somewhere in the company documents or it could be information about your competitors or your market that you find online. These days businesses depend on good information and Sharepoint can help you get it.

Sharepoint can also be used for process integration and system integration, basically it can be used to take a lot of different pieces of a project and make them work together, another useful application. There are a lot more things that Sharepoint can do and businesses have really just scratched the surface of all the benefits that they can get from the software. As they start to realize how useful it can be however you can expect that they will start to use it more to its full potential. When this happens they will find that they are able to use information a lot better than in the past.

In order to obtain a good ranking in the country specific search engines, you will have to consider certain strategies. You must always consider the country where you are planning to host the website. For example, if you wish to promote a service in America, please ensure that an American company that has servers in USA does the web hosting. If you tweak the website in an optimum manner, then the search engine rankings will increase within no time. Many webmasters fail to grasp this concept and wonder what went wrong!

How does a search engine determine the country of an internet user? Every cyber citizen will have a unique IP address. This IP address is relevant to an ISP (internet service provider). Search engines will determine the ISP and will subsequently display country specific search results. The same company will employ another strategy too to determine the precise location of a user. The domain name plays a significant role in deciding the appropriate location. For instance, the websites hosted in the United Kingdom will have a co.uk domain name. Similarly, those websites hosted in China will have co.cn domain attributes. If you wish to entertain the interests of the Chinese, please opt for a co.cn domain and a web hosting company that has servers in China.

Diligent SEO professionals will be aware of such anomalies. They make use of intricate web tools to determine the exact hosting location of a website. Once they have resolved the same, they will begin to work on the page rank improvement measures. A prominent measure is to exercise link building. The links pointing to the website along with those that originate from the website will play important roles. Please concentrate on the quality of the incoming and outgoing links – not on the quantity. Likewise, the language of the website also settles its optimum page ranking.

It is a good practice to be aware of such desperate measures if you wish to see an improvement in the page ranking of your website. Here is an insider tip that is very effective – if viable, please include details and other information about local businesses in the website (which you wish to promote). If you are willing to spend some time researching on the niche, you can come across plenty of tools that will get the job done. Learn the complex concepts that involve geo-marketing and incorporate them on your website. Sooner or later, the website might find favor in the eyes of the country specific search engines.

The homepage of a website can be referred to in many ways. Users can get to the homepage through a variety of URLs, but they all go to the same place. There may be other combinations, but here are a few common ones.

1. http://www.domain.com
2. http://domain.com
3. http://domain.com/
4. http://domain.com/index.php
5. http://www.domain.com/index.htm

For two main reasons, it is better to choose one structure and then redirect the others to the chosen URL, rather than having search engines index each and every page, and having users come to the website through any URL. By placing 301 redirects on the pages that you do not want indexed, then anyone coming to the site will be sent to the chosen URL. The chosen URL is the canonical URL.

Now that you understand the definition of canonical URL, you probably wonder what relevance it has in website building and why you should even care. The first reason you want your URLs to be standard is to avoid duplicate content issues when search engines index your website’s pages. If visitors can get to your site in four or five different ways, then you have four or five pages of the exact same thing in the search engine results. You might think that is a good idea, giving you more chances of being found, but in fact, duplicate content for the purposes of having more pages is not acceptable behavior. Duplicate content can be, at the worst a reason for site removal from search engines, and at the least a reason for filtering out some pages.

The second reason for choosing one URL over the others, is for improved search engine optimization purposes. When search engines index webpages, each page carries its own authority depending on who links to the page, and on how many other websites find the page relevant. The problem is when other websites link to your pages, you have no control over the links they use. So basically, links are found everywhere. Having many links to a website is a benefit, but when links going to the same page have different URLs, then the authority of a page is diluted. Search engines see each page as separate, so you are hampering your efforts to better rankings.

The easiest way to understand this is through simple math. If you have one-thousand websites linking to http://domain.com, then this page is very popular according to other websites. But, let’s say some web owners decide to link to any of the above five combinations. Now maybe you have one-hundred links going here, two-hundred going somewhere else, another five-hundred over there, and on and on… It does not make any sense having links willy-nilly, especially when you can control where they go right on your own server. Using canonical urls helps the search engines understand they need to pick the one option, not the other. For example, we have loads of people linking to pages on our social shopping network at Yozo.be. We prefer not to use the www. version – but people link to it anyway. Using the canonical tag, we make sure Google indexes (and values) the correct url.

Further, when you link to your own pages within your website, it is important for you to keep the same structure as well. With so many blog scripts and content management systems on the market, it is easy to forget what structure you used. By setting your canonical URLs, you can benefit from better onsite SEO as well.

To conclude, when we think about about the concept of canonical URLs and its importance for SEO, the main reason to choose one URL over the others is to get the most benefit from outside links. More links funneled to one location is better than dividing them around. It is similar to watering the lawn. The area that gets the most water benefits with nice green grass. And the area that only received a few drops of water is brown and burnt from the sun.

Excerpt vs. Content on Homepage

Some people prefer reading new posts on the homepage. They do not want to bother with clicking on links to get to the rest of the story. Sometimes, however, this can cause problems by creating duplicate content. For example, if you publish your posts in their entirety on the homepage, when users go to the actual post page, the same content exists. This is duplicate content because you see the same article on more than one page. To circumvent this, instead of using the “content” tag in the index.php file, you would use the “excerpt” tag. This means that the home page will show a summary of the posts, and the actual post page will show the complete posts.

Excerpt vs. Content on Category and Search Pages

When users search a term or display a category, the results will be shown in either full posts or summaries according to the content or excerpt tags. Again, like the homepage, summaries will avoid duplicate content where full posts will add another page of duplication. So if you count the homepage, the post page, and the category page, you know have the same post on three different pages. Not good.

Use of Conditional Tags

In order to prevent search engines from indexing every page in a website, you can add a “conditional tag” to the <head></head> section of the theme’s header.php file. The code will tell search engines to ignore pages such as feeds and archives. These tags are also called “noindex” and “nofollow”.

http://www.domain.com vs. http://domain.com

People can find your website in more than one way. With the www or without. Because of this search engines view each way as separate pages. They do not recognize that www and no-www is the same thing. In order to prevent pages being indexed for both, you can add a “canonical URL tag” to your header.php file so that search engines only see the site one way.

Permalink Structure

When you assign permalinks (the nice, relevant URLs) to your blog pages, you should use a structure that defines each page accordingly. For example, if you only designate posts by title, then there is a high chance that you will have more than one article with the same name and this might cause search engines to believe there is duplicate content. But, if you add an identifier to the structure, such as the month or year, you will ensure that each is different.

Meta Tags and Page Titles

Using various SEO plugins will help with this problem. If you let WP do what it wants, sometimes you will end up with all the titles on every page the same. And often it is just the name of your website. For both the duplicate content issue and SEO purposes, this scenario is bad. Using a proper plugin will allow you to provide proper titles on the pages and better meta tags.

Be Careful When Writing

Duplicate content does not only happen by way of full posts or articles. Blocks of text that are identical can raise flags. The search engines do not necessarily “read” the whole page so they do not know that the content may be different. They only know that one block or paragraph is the same. When you write your content, be aware of duplicate content issues and mix it up a little.

Limit Multiple Categories

This duplicate content fix is a little tricky. You want to add your posts to as many categories as possible, so that they are useful to your readers, but at the same time, you know it might cause an issue. The truth is that you should add posts to more than one category if they absolutely fit and it is beneficial to your readers. An example would be when people buy items because of size and color. The item should be in both relevant categories. But, it is not necessary to place posts in several categories just because a word is mentioned in the posts. Use multiple categories wisely for your readers, but limit the number if it does not make sense.

Finally, we should mention that Google, in particular, is looking for duplicate content in excess. If you have one or two posts that appear in a couple of places, this will be a non-issue. Overall, you should take precautions to avoid duplicate content on wordpress sites, but there is no need to get paranoid.

Search engine companies tweak the relevancy algorithm periodically. Now they are trying to incorporate the human element into the paradigm. For instance, we will consider a real life scenario. If you wish to purchase an expensive electronic gadget, you will always procure the same from a trusted showroom that has been in operation for many years. The nature of trust that plays into this simple situation is highly relevant. Even if the product of your liking is slightly expensive, you will be willing to shell out a couple of extra dollars.

Search engines employ the same sentiments these days to rank a website. The greater the age of the domain, the better are the chances of it occupying the top spots on search results. This is highly significant because literally anyone can create a website within minutes these days. If they are aware of the SEO paradigms, then they can occupy the feasible spots on the search results. It is originally unfair and in order to uphold the integrity of these results, the search engines give ample priority to the domain’s age.

There are special software tools that churn out hundreds of spam websites in a couple of hours. Imagine someone tweaking all these portals by including link building and other forms of SEO promotional schemes. The search engines also take into account the duration of the domain name registration. Spammers often register their spam websites for shorter durations such as three or six months. Serious business users will register their websites for longer time spans because it turns out to be highly feasible for them (in terms of cash savings). Google’s Jagger Update played spoilsport for many so-called SEO professionals who were prying on such ulterior manners to promote their network of websites. If you look at our domain name, even though it’s still very young, it’s registered for years in advance, and thus wins some authority.

If you plan to build a website, it is wiser to register the domain name as soon as viable. Time waits for no one, and if you keep on hesitating (thinking about the exact name of the domain), you are the one who is going to pay heavily for the same eventually. It is not necessary to have a fresh start – you can look out for older domains that are being auctioned online regularly. It can be tough to find the exact age of a domain. However, with the help of advanced web tools, one can easily find such information within minutes. You must have a good notion about the age of other websites that operate on the same business model if you wish to supersede them.

• WordPress
• Movable Type
• Textpattern
• Drupal
• ExpressionEngine
• Nucleus CMS
• b2Evolution

We’ve also added a couple new info-articles on choosing a web design company, outsourcing web design and starting your own web design company.

• An introduction to CSS
• HTML Tutorial: Making forms in HTML
• What can Social Media do for your business?
• Is Advertising on Facebook worth it?
• DMCA Information (Found a great site about the DMCA too, while researching this, by the way!)
• Where to find copyright-free stock photos for your site?

More to come when we update this with a new list somewhere in March!