How to create 301 redirect in wordpress

How to Create 301 Redirects in WordPress

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Are you currently using WordPress on your new website? Have you been noticing broken links or 404 errors? It may be time to create some 301 redirects. To start, “.htaccess” is a configuration file for web servers running Apache Web Server. When a .htaccess file is placed in a directory which is in turn ‘loaded via the Apache Web Server’, then the .htaccess file is detected and executed by the Apache Web Server. For SEO, a .htaccess file something you are going to have to get used to. From editing to even creating. Although, many easy backends, like WordPress, help more than you think with SEO. Plug-ins like ‘Yoast SEO’ can help you access files such as ‘Robots.txt’ or ‘.htaccess’.

The main reason to edit a .htaccess file is for 301 redirects. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes ‘link juice’ (ranking power) to the new redirected page. You’re going to need to do this if you are seeing broken links via Webmaster tools or noticeable on the front-end. As an SEO, redirects are your bread and butter. Whenever you change a URL, it needs to be redirected to the new URL. Here’s a plugin I personally use to create 301 Redirects in WordPress.

WordPress plugins to Use

If you’re using WordPress, you going to want to use a WordPress plugin for redirects. Not only is it easier to create, but it’s also easier to manage. The best redirect plugin that I’m currently using is ‘Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin’. It allows you to easily and quickly create redirects to any of your broken links.

Having used this plug-in for a while, sometimes it doesn’t work. (usually based on the host of the website). When these don’t work, I have to go and create the redirect via .htaccess file.

Create via .htaccess

Sometimes redirects may not work properly with some WordPress plug-ins. If you find yourself in this position, you’re going to want to create the redirects manually in the .htaccess file.

There two ways to access the .htaccess file on a WordPress website.

FTP login

FTP login is the best way to approach this if you have access to that information.

Yoast SEO plug-in

The is the easier way to access the .htaccess file in the WordPress backend. This a method used when you don’t have login information to the FTP provided by the host of your website.

Create a site-wide redirect via .htaccess

If you’re having an issue where you need to redirect a whole site to another site, you can do that in the .htaccess file as well. For example, if you need to redirect www.something.com to www.somewhere.com, it is possible if the site files are in the same root folder of the website.

Alright, so there you have it. These are the best ways to redirect WordPress websites. If you have any questions or concerns, go ahead and leave a comment below. Be sure to browse our site for more helpful web tutorials from Extima Web Development.

The End of Intrusive Pop-Ups is Near

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online marketingWhile they’ve become a staple of online marketing, we all know how annoying pop-ads can be—especially on a mobile device. They overtake your entire screen and are difficult to make go away. Now Google is taking matters into their own hands by penalizing pages with these intrusive pop-ups, formally known as interstitials. Web pages that do not provide a smooth transition from search results to content will not rank as highly as those where content is easily accessible.

The thought behind this move is to improve the user experience and make mobile searches more efficient. Google announced that penalties would commence after January 10, 2017.

What are Intrusive Interstitials?

Google’s Webmaster Central blog defines three types of interstitials that will be penalized from now on.

1. A Pop-Up That Covers a Site’s Main Content
This is the type of annoying interstitial that hides a page’s main content from you. It may pop up immediately or a few seconds or longer after you enter the site. This type of interstitial requires some sort of action from you to get rid of it and access the content again. In the past, it was a mainstay of online marketing, as it was a solid way to capture leads. These pop-ups will now cause a site to be penalized and will demote its ranking in Google searches.

2. The Standalone.
This type of interstitial locks all of the content on a page and must be dismissed before you can access the site. This is now considered a red flag to Google and can quickly affect your bounce rate, as many visitors will immediately leave the site rather than taking action to access the content, especially mobile users.

3. A Pop-Up With Content Inlined Underneath the Fold
In this example, an above-the-fold part of the page looks like a standalone, but the original content is actually inlined underneath it.

Which Pop-Ups Can Still be Used?

If you do choose to use an interstitial on your site, make sure it doesn’t block mobile visitors from accessing your content. The types that are permitted on a WordPress site include the following:

1. Pop-ups used for age verification or to inform visitors of a legal notice or cookie usage.

2. Banners that are easy to dismiss and occupy a small amount of the screen, approximately 10 to 15 percent. Some good examples are the app install banners provided by Chrome.

3. Banners appearing in the sidebar.

4. Login dialogs for sites that feature private, unindexable content.

If you use any of the newly-banned forms of intrusive pop-ups, it may be best to turn them off now, at the very least for mobile users. The good news is, if you used plugins to create pop-ups, many of these will offer updates with Google-approved options. Either way, this new Google announcement will result in an improved user experience and may usher in creative new ways for content to be delivered online.

Visit this link for information about our host of SEO and online marketing services.

Make someone Google Analytics Admin

How to Make Someone Your Google Analytics Admin

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So I guess you’re wondering how to make someone your Google Analytics Admin? Well for those of you who are wondering how to do, take a look at this step-by-step tutorial.

Step 1

First, go to google.com/analytics then sign into your Gmail account.Google Analytics Admin step 1

Step 2

Find the Google analytics account (If you have more accounts associated with your Gmail account). Then click that account’s website data.

Google Analytics Admin step 2

Step 3

Next, once you’re on the dashboard screen of your google analytics account, click admin.

Google Analytics Admin step 3

Step 4

Now that we are in the admin part of your Google Analytics account, be sure you are on the correct account, then click User Managment.

Google Analytics Admin step 4

Step 5

On the left, you should see the user management options. Go ahead and add permission options for your new admin. You may click the ‘Notify this user by email’ to send the new user a quick email about becoming an admin to your account. Once finished, go ahead and click Add.

Google Analytics Admin step 5

Step 6

You’re finished! Now you and your new admin may control the account and view analytical data together.

Online Marketing Tips: 3 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

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3 SEO and Online Marketing Tips | Mistakes to AvoidAs you know, SEO plays a critical role in your overall marketing strategy—attracting traffic, generating leads and converting them into sales. While SEO needs to be at the forefront of your mind when designing your website and creating content for it, it’s just as important to avoid mistakes that can take down your rankings and destroy all of your online marketing efforts.

Read on for three online marketing tips, and SEO mistakes to avoid.

1. Keyword stuffing.

While keywords play a critical role in your SEO strategy, keyword stuffing will attract a Google penalty and cause a rapid decline in your search engine rankings. Some sites even get banned for this old school practice. Stuffing is basically overdoing it; it’s when you pack your page with keywords in the content and metatags. Your content needs to be organic and information-rich, with natural mentions of your keywords and not too many of them.

2. Duplicate content.

Copying and reposting content from competitors or other industry websites is technically plagiarism and will cause Google to penalize or even de-index your site. When content appears on the web more than once, the original creator will receive the credit and the sites who copied it will be penalized.

3. Broken links and 404s.

When a hyperlink points to a page that no longer exists, this is annoying to your visitors, and worse yet, tells Google your site is low quality. This harms your reputation and credibility and can result in penalties. If your site has active hyperlinks pointing to URLS that no longer work, your best course of action is to redirect them to a different page on your site.

Do your best to avoid making these mistakes and if they do occur, strive to correct them as soon as possible. It will make a significant difference in the success of your marketing and SEO strategies.

Click through to discover more online marketing tips and learn about the SEO services that we offer.

online marketing

7 Factors That Make a Marketing Link “Good”

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Online marketingJust like SEO, link building is a part of online marketing that is continuously evolving—so much so that some have stopped the practice altogether. This may be due to recent comments made in a Google + hangout by Google’s webmaster trends analyst, John Mueller, who stated that link building could potentially do your website more harm than good.

While it’s true that search engines have gotten much better at determining the quality of a link, this just means that you need to make sure that you’re only using quality links. Read on for seven things to look for in determining the quality of a link.

1. Relevancy.

This means that the content on the site that you’re linking to is relevant to your content and your business offerings.

2. Links should be trusted.

This means that the page you are linking to has a good PageRank with Google. In other words, Google has deemed the site as having “authority.”

3. It’s a text link.

This means that the link is not a logo or image link, but simply text.

4. The link is not a redirect.

This means that it’s a direct link, not one that uses referral script.

5. The IP address is trusted.

The page you’re linking to is on a site from an IP address that hosts no spammy sites.

6. The link doesn’t have a lot of company.

In an ideal world, a link to your site would be the first and only link on that page. “Only” may be a far reach; if it’s one of few outbound links that can work.

7. The link is not reciprocal.

Google frowns upon exchange reciprocal links and will penalize your site of there are too many taking place between two sources.

As you can see, link building can be tricky, which is why your best route is to let experts do it for you. For information on our link building and online marketing services, click here.

Why SEO is Essential for e-Commerce

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Why SEO is Essential for e-Commerce Website Design

No matter how big or small your e-Commerce site is, implementing a solid SEO strategy is crucial to the success of your business. Good SEO practices boosts traffic and increases revenues, while helping you keep up with and dominate the competition.

Why Search Matters

SEO is one of the most fundamental ways to help customers find your company and its products. Nine times out of 10, if you log into your Google Analytics account, organic search will rank as one of your top sources of sales and traffic. Studies show that the majority of online purchase decisions are made with the help of search engine rankings. This means it’s essential to get your target keyphrases ranking—on page one, if possible. When your company doesn’t show up in the first few pages of search results, fewer customers will know about your products and your company will sell less. In addition to helping potential customers and clients find you, SEO helps you stay visible and even stand out amongst the competition.

Another important thing to consider about SEO is that it promises an avenue for growth. When you invest serious numbers into the website design of your e-Commerce site and product development, it only makes sense to pursue every opportunity to increase brand visibility. By usurping average search engine rankings, your company will experience a surge of traffic that can significantly boost your profits.

Cost-Effectiveness

When it comes to the cost-effectiveness of implementing marketing strategies, organic SEO gives you more targeted results with a lower bounce rate than many ads and PPC campaigns can generate. More importantly, SEO’s effects are long lasting, making it a better investment than an ad that disappears when the campaign ends, leaving no lasting impact on your search engine rankings. In addition, cost per click and banner ads can be expensive, while an effective SEO strategy can be implemented at a fixed monthly cost. It can keep your sales coming and achieve revenues in a very cost-effective way.

Visit this link to learn about our website design services for e-Commerce sites.

Managed Hosting Services

Why Managed Hosting Services are Essential

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Managed Hosting ServicesWith so many options for hosting, it can be difficult to know what the right option is for you. Due to the flexibility and level of support provided, our managed hosting services are ideal for everyone from individuals to small and medium-sized businesses. Managed hosting is essential for websites that contain confidential data or require constant maintenance, and offers the best protection against hackers and other unforeseen issues.

While larger companies have the budget for a full IT staff, many smaller companies do not. Our managed hosting services provide the technical support you need to keep your website operating optimally. If your website fails, we will get it working correctly as quickly and efficiently as possible—and at no extra cost in addition to your monthly subscription fees. No need for outside services, third party webmasters or in-house IT employees.

One of the most important and valuable aspects of our managed hosting package is the regular backups that we perform. We backup website database information on a daily basis and perform backups of site files twice a week. This way, your website is always safe and secure—you will never lose the content and information that is so crucial for both your website and business.

Our managed hosting services also alleviate the stress of WordPress Core and Plug-in maintenance. Often times, clients encounter errors when they try to make updates and are unable to resolve them due to interaction issues between plugins. Our team of experts monitor your site and provide all the necessary plug-and-play solutions to manage it and keep it up-to-date. On a monthly basis, we update all plugins and WordPress core and resolve any issues that arise during this technical process.

Managed hosting services allow you to focus on what’s important—the products or services you offer—instead of worrying about server failures and errors. Whenever a problem arises, our team solves it so you can focus on generating more revenue.

Visit this link to learn more about our managed hosting services and other backup solutions.

online marketing

3 Ways to Improve Email Blasts

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online marketingIf you spend a lot of time and effort crafting online marketing campaigns like email blasts and newsletters, it’s disappointing when your recipients don’t open and read them. It doesn’t matter if you have a huge subscriber list if no one is opening your emails—the whole point is to boost traffic and increase sales. If you’re not happy with your current open and click rates, here are a few things you can do to better engage your audience and improve your online marketing results.

1. Be consistent with online marketing.

While there’s a difference between staying on subscribers’ minds and flooding their inboxes, research shows that most businesses don’t email their subscribers enough. Send an email blast as soon as they sign up, and then stay on their mind by sending a content-rich email or two in the first week—studies show that engagement is greatest within the first three to seven days after signup. Make sure there is engaging content and a nice discount or promo in the email, so that you make an indelible positive impression on your audience. LeadPages touts some interesting data in regards to this—they’ve found that 50 percent of conversions occur during the first month after signup, and 75 percent happens with the first three months.

2. Make subject lines long.

According to Get Response, emails with subject lines longer than 61 characters had the greatest open rate—to the tune of 12.38 percent. Do your own study by splitting an email campaign and using a long subject line for half of your recipients and one below 61 characters for the second half of your list.

3. Engage your audience’s curiosity.

Much research shows that an open loop technique in the subject line increases your open rate. Give general information that will pique your subscriber’s curiosity, such as “Learn how to boost website traffic,” “Lose weight without depriving yourself” or “Take 10 years off your face,” without giving the specifics of how you plan to tell your readers how to achieve their goals. Make sure that your copy delivers what you promise.

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Google Analytics Spam Refferal

How to Filter Spam Referral Traffic from Google Analytics

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Have you noticed spam traffic showing up in your Google Analytics data? While it can be annoying, it’s a very common issue and something many of us face on a daily basis. If you’re new to the process, filtering spam referral traffic from Google Analytics may not be as easy at it appears. Here is the best way to filter out that unwanted traffic and show accurate data.

Step 1

Login to your Google Analytics account.

Google Analytics Filter Spam Referral Traffic Audience overview

 

Step 2

Locate the domain where the “spam referral” traffic is coming from. Usually you can find these links by sorting by bounce rate or session duration. A real person will interact with your website or be on your site for longer than one second.

Google Analytics Filter Spam Referral Traffic all sessions

Step 3

After you have found the URL you want to filter out, head over to your admin page and select “filters.”

During this step, you can create a new “view” if you want to keep all the web and filtered traffic separate.

google analytics Filter Spam Referral Traffic acquition

Step 4

To set set up the filter to remove the spam referral traffic, you need to exclude the campaign source. While there is a referral option, this is the best way to have it not show up again.

google analytics Filter Spam Referral Traffic options

google analytics Filter Spam Referral Traffic admin

Step 5

Great news–you’re done! Now that the filter is set, you shouldn’t see the traffic from that spam domain anymore. If you set up a different view, you can change between views and see the data you wish to see.

Be sure to see our help document on how to make someone a Facebook admin if you’re interested in other tutorials.

internet marketing strategies

5 Tips to Maximize Holiday Internet Marketing Strategies

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5 Tips to Maximize Holiday Internet Marketing StrategiesNow is the perfect time to optimize your holiday internet marketing strategies campaign to boost sales and increase exposure for your business. Here are a few tips for maximizing sales this and every holiday season.

1. Host a holiday event.

If you have a store or a brick and mortar location, host a holiday party to show customer appreciation. Add an exciting yet relevant element to it—if your business is a clothing store, have a trunk show. If the business you’re promoting is a hair salon, have event styling or makeover services taking place. If you own a gourmet food and wine store, have lots of sampling and a cooking or wine pairing demonstration.

2. Do a holiday email blast.

Make sure to send out a blast offering a holiday discount, a BOGO offer or free shipping. Include gift ideas if relevant so that you can feature special products and promotions. You can also do a savvy email holiday card that includes a discount as well. Now is the time to plan for everything from your Black Friday to after-Christmas sales. Craft all of your announcements and specials now and set up your blasts in advance.

3. Post a holiday gift guide on your blog.

Feature products specials, packages and any holiday discounts in a listing that includes descriptions of what you’re offering and who they make the perfect gift for. Include photos of customers buying gifts or using your products.

4. Incentivize.

Provide exciting incentives that are relevant to your business, such as a raffle for a vacation if you own a travel agency. If you own a bakery, do one for holiday treats.

5. Post all your specials and products on social media.

Let your customers know about special deals on social media and offer specific discounts that are only for your followers—this is easily done with promo codes. Post different gift ideas every day to increase exposure of your products and services.

Visit this link for information about our internet marketing strategies and other services.