http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog We share tips on search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, local search optimizing, and other tactics to improve your online presence. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:12:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/error-pages-appearing-site http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/error-pages-appearing-site#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:14:32 +0000 Tim http://dtc.mighty-site.com/blog/?p=1681
When an umpire blows a call, his presence on (and off) the field is glaringly obvious. Managers and players get ejected. Columnists across the country throw their two cents in. Fans boo. And one of the most common reactions typically sounds something like: nobody pays to see umpires.

And nobody (well, _almost_ nobody), wants to be aware of what's going on with a site's server. On the internet, the 'blown calls' become obvious when users see HTTP error pages. These pages appear when, for a variety of reasons, the server can't figure out how to show the user what they are trying to find.

Neither users nor search engines like to find error pages; they're frustrating and significantly hurt the user's browsing experience. If you own a site, you really do need to know exactly how, when, and why error pages are showing up for your clients. And most importantly, you need to know at least a little bit about what is causing the problem, so any issues can be addressed.

Unfortunately, like a lot of aspects of information technology, error pages weren't designed with much consideration into making them understandable. By default, most modern servers return a page with a cryptic 3-number code, and some jargon about the nature of the error. But unless you have a decent amount of training in systems administration, these messages probably aren't of much use. To help make these codes more understandable for non-geeks, I've summarized some of the most common error codes that you might see on a site, as well as steps that you can take to fix the errors.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/error-pages-appearing-site/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/optimizing-websites-humans-search-engines http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/optimizing-websites-humans-search-engines#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:20:43 +0000 Steven http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=1586 SEO professionals is striking the balance between optimizing a website for search engines while maintaining effective on-page optimization for user experience. More often than not, a website will do one very well and neglect the other. The question arises, “If you could delegate your resources for optimizing a site for only search engines or humans, which is the better approach?” My immediate response to such a question has in the past been - what is the purpose of having a beautiful, user friendly website if nobody can find it in the first place? And while there may be substance behind that line of reasoning in certain situations, the issue is far more complex than that and such a reaction doesn’t capture the breadth of the problem.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/optimizing-websites-humans-search-engines/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/interlinking-pages-improve-seo-ra http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/interlinking-pages-improve-seo-ra#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:03:46 +0000 John-Henry http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=1070 SEO friendly, we often suggest that clients use text hyperlinks to connect their pages when creating new content. This topic can lead to some confusion, so I put together this handy blog post to guide our client’s into creating optimized and internally linked text.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/interlinking-pages-improve-seo-ra/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google-rolls-longer-meta-description-snippets http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google-rolls-longer-meta-description-snippets#comments Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:57:41 +0000 George http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=175 Google announced that they are rolling out longer meta description snippets for some keyword searches. The new feature will appear in search results for queries that are 3 words or longer and have a very specific intent. So for example, if you are searching for something like "Google Rolls Out Extended Snippets" you'll see some results that have longer meta description snippets (3 or 4 lines instead of only 2) like this:]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google-rolls-longer-meta-description-snippets/feed 3 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/youtube-500-internal-server-error http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/youtube-500-internal-server-error#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:46:36 +0000 Taylor http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=161 SEO and usability sake, it is interesting to see how the big boys handle such issues.

Here is the top part of the page I just saw when causing a 500 internal server error:]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/youtube-500-internal-server-error/feed 2 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/page-load-speed-important-seo-ppc-useability http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/page-load-speed-important-seo-ppc-useability#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:36:14 +0000 George http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/page-load-speed-important-seo-ppc-useability speed test tool.

There has been a lot of attention on page load speed lately. There used to be more focus on page load speed back when everybody was on 56k modems, but it seems a lot of the best practices from those days have gone out the window since high speed internet came along. I'd like to remind people that it's still important to optimize the speed of your pages. It can affect how much traffic your site receives, how many vistors stay on your site after you get them there and the bottom line...how much money your site makes. This is especially true for ecommerce sites that naturally get more browsing and page views per visitor.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/page-load-speed-important-seo-ppc-useability/feed 3