Awhile back,  I posted about our support for “Almost Pretty”  permalinks for your WordPress site on our network.   Today,  I’m happy to announce that we now support “Pretty”  permalinks on your Word Press site.  When you host with PepperStation,  your website is supported by a number of servers behind the scenes.  Recent upgrades to our servers and various dial turning and button pushing now allow us to support “Pretty”  permalinks on your WordPress site.

So,  if you currently have /index.php in your permalink structure, and would like to remove it,  feel free to do so.

What are permalinks?  Here is a little refresher from our previous post.

A refresher on permalinks -

Permalinks are the links you can share with others and the search engines for your blog posts.  From a search engine performance point of view,links to your site or blog that contain keywords relevant to your page’s content,will boost the ranking performance of that page with the search engines.  By default WordPress uses “ugly”  permalinks which look something like:http://example.com/?p=N

These links while functional,do not have an added benefit of loading your link with keywords for viewer and search engine consumption.  The preferred permalink is the “Pretty”  or  “Almost Pretty”  variety which allow you to create and share links with keywords in them and look like this:http://example.com/yyyy/mm/post-name/

Read more about permalinks on the wordpress site at:http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

To create links for your blog containing keywords,  log onto your WordPress admin and goto settings->permalinks.  Select a common link structure that you wold like to use and then modify it by adding /index.php to the beginning in the ‘custom structure’field.  You will have a link structure that looks something like: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/

That’s it,  you are good to go and now have links that contain great keywords for your blog post.

Enjoy!
Steve

Adding a mobile site to complement your existing site(s) makes great sense for a variety of reasons. That said, as with any new site, its impact on your SEO should be considered and planned for. We added two new features to our CafePepper mobile website service to help.

First, we made it a snap to exclude your mobile website from search indexing. This, of course, will prevent any duplicate content issues with the search engines and ensure your existing ranked URLs are not affected.

Second, we added the option to tell the search engines the ‘primary’ location for your content. This is the most flexible approach as it allows your mobile content to be indexed and tells the search engines a little more about your site and its content so that it will not interfere with the ranking of your previously indexed content. For the technically curious, this is done with a ‘canonical’ tag which you can read more about at this google post.

Either way, your SEO mojo is safe with your new mobile website. So, feel free to unleash, get creative and share all your favorite content on your mobile site.

Enjoy!

Getting started on your account is easy with the following steps:

* Sign up for your free 30 day trial
* Select the plan you are interested in
* Receive a confirmation email
* Login to CafePepper

Now, you are ready to get started on building your mobile site!

Begin by entering your “site info”.
This is where all the basic information for your site goes, such as domain name, address and phone number. Additionally, this is the same page where you can enter search engine keywords and get your redirect code to point your full size website to your mobile website.

Next step – site color and style
This is where the fun begins! Here you can use the color picker to customize the colors for your mobile website. You select the colors for your site tabs, site background, content background, and font – in fact, you have full control over all the colors on your mobile site. Yay!

Next step – site links
Here you just click through the checklist of any links you want on your mobile site. Want to add a map or a link to your Facebook page? This is where that magic happens. Just be sure you have completed the address and phone number for your business in the “site info” tab and CafePepper will know what to do from there!

Now, move on to the “pages” tab in CafePepper.

You’ll notice the “Home page” is already listed as a page for your mobile website. Click on “Home” and you’ll see a mobile phone ready for you to “edit”, “view” or see the “details” of your page. There are two things you can do from the “edit” page. You can “add” new content or “edit” existing content. Go ahead and start with “add” content. (click within the sample mobile phone)

Clicking on “add” content will take you to a text editor. Here you can enter your content however you would like it to appear on your page. Once you are done here you’ll create your new content by clicking on “create”. You can continue to “edit” the page or “view” what your content looks like on your phone!

Continue adding content to your page by either clicking “add” for more content or “edit” for existing content. Clicking “add” will return you to the text editor to create new content. Be sure to hit “create” each time you are finished adding new content. If you choose to “edit” content, you will still use the text editor to change your existing content. Edit your content and hit “update”. Keep “add”ing and “edit”ing content until you are satisfied with how your page looks in the “view” of your mobile site.

Add more pages as you go!

You can keep adding pages and content by selecting “add page”. You’ll want to name your page and decide where it should fall in your website. Be sure to click “add” when you are done so CafePepper knows you are ready to add this page to your site! You’ll receive a confirmation message at the top of the “pages” screen to let you know what you accomplished.

Remember, when you are ready to add or change content on a page you click on “add” or “edit” content within the phone image and you are taken directly to the text editor. Just keep the cycle of “edit” and “view” going for each page you add until you are satisfied you’ve said all you want to say on your mobile site!

The details…

As you wrap up, you can use the “details” tab to review the details for each of your mobile site’s pages. This is where you can rename the page, if necessary. This is also where you can add page specific keywords and descriptions so the search engines can best find your mobile website.

Once you are done adding content to your site, be sure to cut and paste the redirect code provided on the “site info” tab into your full screen website so it can detect when your customers are reaching you via a mobile device.

Congratulations! You have a mobile site powered by CafePepper. Your customers can now easily find your business from their mobile device. Be sure to pat yourself on the back… you are well on your way to driving traffic to your business and making your customers happy. YAY!

So, what does this mean for you?

This means that, ready or not, customers are already looking for you on their mobile device, and your website is most likely not providing the same great experience on their phone as it does your computer. Providing a mobile site made for the iPhone and other mobile devices can significantly improve your customers’ experience and drive your sales conversion.

According to BizReport, the time to act on a mobile site is now; “hopefully, marketers will begin to realize that if they want to attract the next generation of users then an ‘Internet presence’ alone isn’t enough. Today, a ‘mobile Internet presence’ is important, too.” (bizreport.com Jan 14, 2010). By ensuring your business has a website that can be viewed successfully on a mobile device, you know you are meeting your customer’s expectations in finding your site user friendly.

CafePepper enables you to create a mobile website quickly and easily, keeping your business ahead of the competition and your customers satisfied. Click here to learn more about how going mobile will grow your business.