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Useful tips for improving your .tel domain Following this month's newsletter with some examples and suggestions on visual design of .tel domains, as well as BKMs on boosting your SEO rankings with .tel, we'd like to suggest a community-driven initiative to collect tips and best practices on .tel population. In this thread, you are welcome to post tips that you've invented yourself or found elsewhere, that can make a .tel more useful and better populated, higher rated and better looking. The best tips will also be published in the Community Help and Advice area. For everyone's convenience, let's post one tip per post, in a uniform way so that new visitors can easily distinguish the instructions from any comments. A tip should have a title in bold typeface followed by a short intro, and separately, the full text. I'll start. Everyone's welcome to join! |
See how many people visit your .tel Setup visitor statistics to easily see how many people and automatic indexing bots visit your .tel page through the web with the registry TelStats service. The official TelStats service is still in Beta, but it provides a 2-month log of all visits to your page in a standardized format. The system logs all web visits, which doesn't include visits from iPHone Superbook, Outlook plugin and other apps - but even so, you can get a very informative picture about the dynamic of your .tel domain popularity. You can then try different promotion methods, link to your .tel from different places, and see how your traffic fluctuates. To access visitor stats, you need to: 1. Activate TelFriends for your domain as those login details will be needed. 2. Go to https://telstats.nic.tel/. 3. Enter your TelFriends details: TelFriends username and password, and the answer to the security question. 4. Leave the "Domains" field blank to get stats for all domains in that TelFriends account, or list the .tel names you're interested in. 5. Change the dates you want the log for, if needed. 6. Hit Get Logs and save the data you see into a file: either go File > Save as in your browser, or Select All and copy to a file. Now that you have the data, you need a parser to read it and make sense. There are several solutions out there. If you are a web developer, you can use a standard web log analyser. If you're new to web technology, you can choose to use one of the free tools setup by community members: * TelMasters, https://www.telmasters.com/ * DTSAnalyzer, http://www.dtsanalyzer.com/ |
Minimal effort to make your .tel domain appealing 1. add an icon - invites the visitor to stay a bit longer 2. add a brief, yet informative title 3. have your title reflected in your header (great for SEO) 4. use the related content object to provide additional information 5. have an easy-on-the eyes color combination Replicate tips 1-3 for all the subdomains, perhaps with some pages having different icons to suit their specific purpose. Related content example: www.arthritis.tel (work in progress) Different icons: www.beerstores.tel Mark |
. Set yourself targets for backlinks. Links from other web sites, .tels, directories, blogs etc. all help PageRank, which in turn helps to improve SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), along with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). I set myself a target of 5 low quality one way backlinks a week or 1 good quality backlink. I consider a good quality link to be from a PR 3, or above with relevant content to my .tel. Choose your own target and try to stick to it. (never pay for backlinks) |
Use long labels to give your tel a more professional feel & seo benefit Provide each contact record a long label so when viewed on the proxy will replace the default go to see http://CoventGarden.tel Also has an added seo benefit as the latest version of the proxy uses the long label in the title field |
Add a description to your icon Google is indexing icons/images on dot tels based on the attached description. Your icon should be used not just to make the page more appealing. They are also a way to help people find your site when searching Google images. The results below indicate that Google indexing of images, is closely based on the actual words used to describe the image on your .tel Examples; Position 1 out of about 6,000,000, for a search that matches exactly the description embedded in the image - http://twitpic.com/1jh3hq Position 21 out of 18,000,000 for a more specific search - http://twitpic.com/1lbp42 Position 1 out of 6,000,000 for a search based on description - http://twitpic.com/1lbulk More on this at; http://29th-april-2010.results-of-th...forsalein.tel/ So don't waste a valuable asset. Add an image and meaningful description. |
Keep it Mobile Friendly Always remember .tels fast mobile friendly uniqueness. Test your .tel on old and new mobiles (just Google mobile online simulators, or Nokia and iPhone have good ones). The skill is to balance keyword content, against useability. If it takes too many clicks, or you have to scroll for ages, people will not enjoy using your .tel, or bookmark it or reccomend it. Good SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is not just getting people to your site, it's about providing a good experience when they get there. |
Hello, good to see so much useful tips, i have been sucessful with many high ranks on search engine with various keywords even thought i have never done any seo or sem before 1) Try to make your .tel main page as informative with a few words ( added keywords to target main page on top ) 2) Don't make the main page with like 20 - 100 folders ( it makes it look ugly and even your .tel will take ages to load try to divide it into sub categories or geo location and divide the data, it will not only make it look neater but also be easier to navigate and make it user friendly too. Thanks :) Shahid |
Host your own images. Gravatar provide a good service, along with the other image,icon hosts. but if you have your own web based site, why not host the images yourself and let the link value from the image go to your web based site, not someone elses. |
Changing an image. This might seem obvious, but if you have the same image/logo in a lot folders and wish to change it, uploading your new image/logo to the same place and with the same name (replacing the old one) will achieve this easily without having to edit your image on every folder. (Easy if you host your own images) |
Background Colour Code The hex code for the record background colour is #f3f4f3 if you change your background colour to it then the whole background appears the same, until you select or mouseover a record, then that area is highlighted. Not everyone will like it, but I think it looks good especially on an iPhone. I have used it here http://cheapaccommodation.tel The iPhone tester I use is http://iphonetester.com/ |
colorful and meaningful icons don't forget to add your twitter, facebook, blogger, etc urls to your tel. the urls are now recognised and result in some cool icons being displayed. see http://contact-us.barking.tel |
Wow, that's a great thread, and just in a day! Keep up the good work. I shall have to think of more useful tips before you post all of them without me! |
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Very good point. Was aware of link value, but hadn't thought of this. I have some self hosted and a couple which are not - but will aim to only use self hosted images from now on. Thanks![/size] |
Transfer without Losing Data Remember that if you transfer a .tel domain and you wish to retain the content you must firstly take a backup of it. This can be done in the "Settings" section of your control panel. Once the transfer has completed you can restore the content with your new provider using the same section within "Settings" and the backup file you created before making the transfer. A movie showing how this can be done has been created by Blacknight - http://www.blip.tv/file/3567023. |
Sister Site Branding If like me your .tels have a sister, web based site, to take bookings or advertise your .tels and want this site to look similar to your .tels, using the css from your tel proxy gives a real uniformity and branding to your site. You end up with a sort of hybrid. I like it, you may not. .tel site http://dialaroom.tel .co.uk site http://dialaroomdottel.co.uk |
Try Different Browsers for different tasks. If you are trying to input a lot of data via the CTH (community tel hosting) and have a large directory or hundreds of pages to sift through when copying, moving recods etc. you may find some browsers respond a lot quicker than others, although i like IE (Internet Explorer) for some jobs, Google Chrome seems to respond quicker on bigger pages, followed by Firefox. It may save you time in the long run if you try a few different browsers, to see which is quickest for you. |
Virtual Desktops For managing your .tel data: Use multiple virtual desktops. You can see all your windows and webpages on one view, and select direct witch website or webpage you would like to see or work on. . |
Have been receiving praise for telwings features, samples here and at telpagesplus.com - Genuine Supply Company Jane Smith All optimized for mobile device viewing ... |
Matching your template colours to your .tel logo icon We use this free tool to pick colours from your logo then use Telmasters quick update tool to set the template colours. Mark |
