Solved: Google SEO help needed

odinnovations · ‎08-08-2011

I have a BT hosted website using easysite pro. I am not at all technical so really need help in plain english. I am trying to use the google SEO and it says:

"1. Control and tracking script

Place the control and tracking script immediately after the opening <head> tag in your original page's source code. Do not put this script in a shared header, or in any file other than the original page."

I do not understand what it means, where do I paste this? I do not understand "source code" do I have one and if so on the easy site where do I find this?

Please help!!!!!!

Angela

Sogo7 · ‎08-08-2011

Hi Angela,

Look for a tab marked view or HTML view, I forget which one it is as I don't code my sites using that particular package however somewhere there is a button that will switch the view from the graphical design (What you see is what you get) layout to the source code.. computers have no eyes so must use words to describe what needs doing that's all source code is.

What you are looking for will be somewhere in the top half of the text and looks like this..

</head>

that's the closing tag, so your tracking code goes like this..

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxxxxxx']);// use your own tracking code
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src=('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

</script>

</head>

Have fun, we'll make a webmistress of you yet!

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View solution in original post

Sogo7 · ‎08-08-2011

Hi Angela,

Look for a tab marked view or HTML view, I forget which one it is as I don't code my sites using that particular package however somewhere there is a button that will switch the view from the graphical design (What you see is what you get) layout to the source code.. computers have no eyes so must use words to describe what needs doing that's all source code is.

What you are looking for will be somewhere in the top half of the text and looks like this..

</head>

that's the closing tag, so your tracking code goes like this..

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxxxxxx']);// use your own tracking code
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src=('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

</script>

</head>

Have fun, we'll make a webmistress of you yet!

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duskjome · ‎09-08-2011

Everything Sogo7 says looks good, as far as I can tell, the option you are looking for is called "edit head tag" and it is in the easy site wizard on the top center in the editor. The button looks like two gears and if you click it it will give you access to the HTML/CSS for the site and menu as well and the meta and head tag.

odinnovations · ‎09-08-2011

First can I thank

Sogo7

Power User

and

duskjome

BT Partner

Sogo7 · ‎09-08-2011

OK, this page that does not validate.. are you able to upload it to the web where we can take a look at it?

The other thing to remember that it is not vital for a webpage to comform with the rules of strict validation. It's the computer equivelent of writing an essay in pitman shorthand and being marked down for bad grammar and punctuation.

If the page works and looks the way you want that's all you need be worried about.

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odinnovations · ‎09-08-2011

Not sure what you mean by take a look, the website is odinnovations.org.uk

Sogo7 · ‎09-08-2011

Had a look at the site (it's not bad for a beginer by the way) and ran it through the W3C Markup Validation Service as I suspected your website has numerous errors that prevent it from validating. These are not your fault, the problem is with the way that the site building package has assembled the source code.

I must stress that the source code is perfectly acceptable and should work fine on any modern web browser. I've checked it on IE9, Firefox and Chrome but not Safari on a Mac and aside from a few minor cross browser niggles it's all good.

Furthermore Google will have no trouble indexing your site, though it does help speed things up if you submit a sitemap to them. Annoyingly this is not part of Analytics and the option is in the 'Webmaster Tools' section of your Google account.

Why it fails validation is not easy to explain but it is largely due to the fact that the 'inline' style favouerd by website building packages makes very bloated and long winded reading.

For example with a site builder every time you create a new paragraph the site builder adds styling information to that specific paragraph. Telling it what font to use , what size, text colour, specifying line hieghts, background colour and so on every time one is created. As all your paragraphs look the same across the site so the same information is repeated over and over again. Using empty paragraphs to achieve spacing is also something it loathes with a passion.

What the validation service would ideally like to see is a single statement saying basically 'All paragraphs look like this', so you have one set of instructions being used repeatedly. This makes for smaller file sizes and it also means that to change the appearence of every paragraph requires changing just one line of code not dozens.

Sadly the ability to write this more elegant kind of source code is beyond the capabilities of a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) site builder and you need to either learn HTML and CSS yourself from the ground up or hire somebody who has has gone grey with the stress of learining it already.

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odinnovations · ‎10-08-2011

Thanks for all your help