SEO tips to ensure a safe website relaunch

Another great article today in Search engine land about the necessary SEO steps to follow prior to and during a website relaunch (8 Necessary SEO Steps During A Website Redesign)

This ties in very well with a post I wrote last year(how to achieve a successful website relaunch) about all the work involved in updating your site.

Work with SEO in mind

What many businesses forget is that SEO needs to be at the heart of your website development, as it will influence architecture, content and navigation. Working with search engines and searchers in mind should be at the forefront of web projects, and marketing input is necessary to ensure the success of a website.

Have you recently gone through a site relaunch? what would be your main advice for businesses willing to relaunch?

blekko | slashtag search

Just playing around with a new search engine this morning after reading a bit about it in SEO newsletters recently.

More than the slashtag functionality which allows you to customise your searches, I have to say I'm very impressed with the SEO tool for each search results which gives you masses of info. Very similar to Google webmaster tools without the need to login or verify your site, so potentially fantastic for competitor research.

Have a go and let me know what you think.

blekko | slashtag search

Bing...and the Yahoo is gone

Well not totally gone actually, just 25% gone to be precise. Yahoo announced this week that 25% of its natural results are now coming from Bing, the first step of a planned transition (read more here).
Call me cynical, but is this going to make a difference on the way most SEOs work? somehow I don't think so as Google's dominance of the market means it will still remain the benchmark when optimising your site. And personally I've never been too impressed with Bing's results...but still, it is a big change in the industry so let's keep an eye on things over the next few weeks/months.

How do you feel about this transition? is this going to affect your work?

Is Yahoo still in the search engine game?

Looks like Yahoo is willing to invest in social media start-ups...too little too late? and to be honest, I don't really think Twitter can be judged as a start up anymore http://www.businessinsider.com/five-startups-yahoo-could-buy-2009-5