Hi All,

I have just launched a new website - mytown.ie - Irish Towns Online - Irish Weather & News, Maps of towns in Ireland

If you visit the site, I hope you realize that it is a community (portal) website for all the mid-to-large towns of Ireland. I have only got content for some of the towns so far (towns on homepage) but I am working on the rest right now. I am a one-man-band so it will take some times, but I will get there.

I like to think I am pretty knowledgable in these areas, but I am not naive enough to think I could not use some help. I am sure there are lots of people out there who have lots of ideas of how I could change the site for the better (technically, design and work-flow). Please voice your opinions by emailing me at feedback@mytown.ie

Thanks for your help in advance,

Garry

Hi Gary.

I would take a look at the URL structure and see if could be made more friendly for the users & search engines.

For example for bray I get town54,bray.html - it would be ideal to make it town-bray.html or even better /town/bray.html

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Hi Gavin,
Thanks, that is actually top of my list of things to do but again thanks for the advice.

If you have any more, please fire away!

Garry

No probs Gary.

You might want to read up on url canonicalization by Matt Cutts. Although its an old article (Jan 2006) I believe its something that should be still looked at.

One thing I also noticed is the green box on the main page. The box and the font inside really doesn't fit well with your design. I'm no designer but there is just something about that font. Hopefully one of the designers on here can chime in with some advice.

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Thanks again Gavin,

I am reading that page now and it looks very interesting. I have just bought a book from Amazon on SEO but waiting for An Post to show up with it.

I know that green box on the HP doesn't look great, and I am open to ideas. I want it to stand out a bit so that visitors can see that the site is new and will be more forgiving about the lack of conent. I am very open to new ideas with regard to design though - it is not my field!

Thanks,

Garry

Take a read through Matt's blog, he gives a great insight to what Google expects from websites. He also has a bunch of videos that are of great help, see here.

Whats the book you purchased?

Unfortunately my design skills are dire so I cant really give you advice on that green box, I have enough hassle trying to work it out for my own sites.

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The book that I bought is:
Get to the Top on Google: Search Engine Optimisation Techniques to Get Your Site to the Top of the Search

The title sounds good, but I am sure it isn't that easy. It has had good reviews but it is not yet released here so I am waiting. I'll let you know if it is any good when I get it.

Hi Garry,

On the green box - for a start, I'd try centring the first line and making it into a heading. Also, some padding and a smaller font size might help the box - it looks a bit cluttered as it is.

Further down the homepage, you've got some <strong> text that look like they should be links, but aren't (it'd make sense to have things like "Register" as a link to the registration section).

I've only looked at the homepage, but the code isn't validating which might be something else you should take a look at.

Hi Garry nice site just registered and hopped in two clubs for Ennis under free listings ta ver much
Disappointment neither of these clubs have a phone contact just an email.
as your not giving away free email links the entry's are a bit useless as nobody can contact us , will you be making concessions for clubs on emails ?

Nice site, but why is Dublin missing for the drop down menu?

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