My Internet Site

[mrbojangles]

Hi people,

Can someone please help me to understand how the search engine's work.

I have an internet site (built by someone else) and i would like to get maximum exposure but i don't know how the search engine picks up on sites etc. What can be done to ensure you get near to the top of list when someone searches for a specific thing.

Any help greatly appreciated

Edited December 5, 2006 by mrbojangles

[bkkmadness]

Keywords, content, titled correctly, files correctly name, links, the way its set up, there's a whole range of things to take into account if you want to get to the top of the search engines.

What industry are you in and what 'search terms' do you want to get high placements for? Some are of course a lot more difficult than others.

It's against forum rules to post your site link here (not sure if you'd want to anyway), but if it wasn't I'm sure a few members could take a look and offer advice.

Beware of all the internet gurus that may contact you by PM and promise to get your site top rankings by the end of the week.

[mrbojangles]

Cheers bkk

It's against forum rules to post your site link here (not sure if you'd want to anyway), but if it wasn't I'm sure a few members could take a look and offer advice.

Yeah that's what i was thinking. I'll pm you

[bkkmadness]

Well I'm hardly an expert Mr Boj but I'll take a look.

[cdnvic]

Fastest way is to pay for some advertising on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. It ensures immediate listing, and builds traffic until linking and word of mouth takes over.

[Richard-BKK]

Paying ensures immediate listing? Where and who can I pay?

The first month you get relative easy into Google, then website are dropped into a so called sandbox and hopeful come out of it after 6 months.

So if somebody can ensure me with contract that I get immediately listed I'm willing to pay.

I think what cdnvic try to say is that it is for a starting website a good option to advertise with Google Adwords, this doesn't help you to get listed more quickly.

[Moonfruit]

Our business site ranks google one when the right keywords are searched.

My wife does all the work on it, and it has taken her about 2 months of fine tuning to get us up there.

It also takes constant attention to keep you at the top.

Also bear in mind that google, msn, yahoo etc spider sites in different ways. If you dont know about SEO, i would suggest you pay someone to do it for you. I fancy myself as a bit of a computer boffin, but with this, i am clueless!

[bkkmadness]

Ok, I took a brief look just now and came up with a few things that may help. If you don't mind me posting your site link Mr Boj some other people might have some better advice than me, in fact I have no doubt they do.

First you gotta work out exactly what search terms you are hoping to come up for. Your industry is quite competitive so it'll be hard work but no one said it was easy.

To find the best search terms you can check on the web for software like 'good keywords' (though I'm sure there are better out there). These are going to tell you what's the most searched for and by who. Remember your main market as well, it's no good making a travel site that is aimed at Americans that is using 'holidays' as a search term when 'vacations' would be better.

Work out what your market is searching for when they are looking for your product, they are your 'keywords' and 'key phrases' and they need to be put into the site.

In a heavily competitive industry the main search terms are close to impossible to get top rankings for, but there will be lesser searched for terms that you might be able to get rankings for, and these might bring you more traffic at the end of the day.

You need to get these keywords into your site as much as possible, the page files need to have them, they need to be in H1/H2 tags on your site, they need to in the main body of content on the site. I don't think you have H1 tags anywhere on your site, and the page files don't have any keywords at all. That's not helping the search engines pick up on your pages.

For example, someone searches for 'Green widgets' in a search engine, then if your page files says www.whatever.com/green-widgets.htm, and your title says 'Green widgets' and your H1 tags in the code of the site say 'Green widgets' and your content also says 'Green widgets' several times then that search engine is going to find your page a lot easier than a page that has a file name www.whavever.com/141516.htm. The '141516.htm' bit isn't helping the search engines at all, it doesn't mean anything.

It's up to you to tell the search engines what your page/website is about, and page files/H1 tags etc. is how to tell them this.

Meta tags can be added to the site as well, though a lot of current opinion is that these do not help as much as they used to.

I think your site was made by someone with design in mind and didn't think about optimizing it for the search engines, which is a common mistake especially for sites like yours which need to get a lot of traffic free from the search engines. Optimizing the site for search engines and design should be going hand in hand, not one or the other.

The algorythims that search engines employ to find your site change over time, you do need to keep abreast of current opinions and changes in these algorythims so you can keep your site on top of the game as it were. (I realise I spelled the algy word wrong!). Try keeping up to date and getting info from sites like webmasterworld.com, theres a ton of forums out there that will help you. Some sites will let you add your link and you will get some great real advise from members there.

Content, content, content, they all say it, nothing is as good for a site as adding fresh content on a regular basis. Articles based around your industry, pages of new information packed full of the right keywords with the correct page file names etc. will help you greatly. Don't just think about the pages on the site that are actually selling the product, think about making pages up for the site that are there for the sole purpose of people being able to find them in the search engines and reach your site. These I think are called 'target pages'.

Linking. Get linked to other sites in your industry. It doesn't have to be your competition, but something of relevance. Again, using the travel site as an example, get it linked to from Travel insurance sites and suchlike, it takes a lot of work to get links sorted but it needs to be done.

Once you find your keywords enter them into google/msn/yahoo and see who pops up. Check who they link with, get those sites (the ones they link to) contacted and ask them for a link as well. You'll get a ton of 'no responses', and a ton of plain and simple 'no's but whatever links you can find that are relevant to your site are going to help you.

Don't be afraid to link back either, if you think the site is useful for your customers and not going to take any business from you then it's a good site to ask for a link exchange.

Ok, hope some of that helps. No doubt a few members will disagree with me, and perfectly right to as nobody knows for sure what is the best way to get to the top but thats some hints and tips I've read and used before with results, perhaps some more members could add their ideas.

The only thing for sure is that takes time, research, a lot of work and patience.

[mrbojangles]

bkk, many, many thanks for the time out, you have taken to reply so in-depth

I wasn't aware of the majority of the things you have said. I will have to speak to the guy who designed the site and start thinking about the key words i need.

As for posting my link. I'd like the thumbs up from the mods first, as i don't want to break any rules. Also, would there be a chance that someone could hack my site if i put it on here. Hope i've not p1ssed anyone off enough for someone to do that but you never know

Again, many thanks indeed to you and Richard BKK, Moonfruit and cdnvic

Edited December 5, 2006 by mrbojangles

[Tywais]

I maintain a personal commercial site where I sell scientific software I write. bkkmadness's post is very good in outlining main issues. It will take a lot of your time to get the exposure to bring it up, I spent probably the first 6 months spending a lot of time each day researching and applying the techniques I learned. If you don't have that kind of time and it is a for profit site then hiring a SEO firm would be the best bet.

You can PM me your website URL and I'll take a look at it also. Best not to post it here in the open forum and anyone wanting to help just PM the OP for more details.

One last thing is that some web hosts have a SEO submission package as part of the subscription and will submit the site to many engines periodically like mine does. Might check your hosting company and see what they have.

[mrbojangles]

You can PM me your website URL and I'll take a look at it also. Best not to post it here in the open forum and anyone wanting to help just PM the OP for more details.

Thanks tywais.

[george]

Welcome to put your website URL's in your member profile, thats the right way to do it.

[bkkmadness]

One last thing is that some web hosts have a SEO submission package as part of the subscription and will submit the site to many engines periodically like mine does. Might check your hosting company and see what they have.

I found WEBCEO to be a nice piece of free software for that, I think someone in another thread recommended it.

If you are looking for a company to do SEO for you, make sure you find a good one, lots of shysters out there selling services that are not what they seem. Theres a way to get high rankings which is the right way, I think called 'white hat' optimization or something (had a few beers now!) and theres the wrong way which is 'black hat' optimization.

Black hat optimization might involve something like getting your site up top with a 'link farm', and you may get great results in the short term, but eventually you'll get noticed for it and your site might get completely removed from the search engine which may at some point cost you a lot of money. There's a lot of people/companies who offer this service (both on the web and in the bars of Bangkok ), avoid at all costs. Even if you are not doing it yourself, it's worth knowing some basics so you can pick the right company to go with.

If you check out webmasterworld, have a look at the 'library' section it'll tell you loads. Like Tywais said, lot of research needed beforehand.

Overture are a good alternative to google adwords for paid advertising. I think Overture won some advertising contracts for a few engines that google couldn't get, and I bet they are cheaper.

[richard10365]

I know my answer strays a bit from your question but....

I think a lot depends on your target audience. Who are you trying to market your product to. Once you determine your target audience then you can entertain marketing strategies and select the best one (s) that would bring you the best results in accordance with your resources (money).

If your target audience is here in Thailand, then a branding strategy might be an effective way to get the word out. Hire some kids to pass out information near the malls. Ask to post your website at internet cafes. Get a keyring made of your website and give it away.

Make brochures and stands for the brochures and ask businesses in your target area if you can leave some of them there. Ask the businesses if they would like you to advertise their business on your website.

Advertising doesn't happen without work or money. Depending on what you have more of will determine how you advertise. If you have enough money, let someone else market your product on the internet. If you don't have a lot of money, you will have to market it yourself.

Edited December 6, 2006 by richard10365

[cdnvic]

I think what cdnvic try to say is that it is for a starting website a good option to advertise with Google Adwords, this doesn't help you to get listed more quickly.

No, I mean when I buy adwords for a new site, I see it in Google within the day. You can't buy pagerank, but you sure get noticed once they have your credit card #

[tigerbeer]

i think the best way to do it to by word of mouth. print your URL on every brochure, handours, letterheads, etc etc. update your site often and the other way is also to advertise on forums related to your industry. be active on the internet by mentioning your company name anywhere you can.

would all come back to your site eventually.

[Clipped]

Google Adsense

Yahoo Overture

are pay per click programs where you bid on the keywords online users are looking for...these are usually the ads on the right side of google search where it says 'sponsored' links.

you only pay if they click on your link.

[joe1912]

you can also use colloquial words and misspelled words in your key words. People often mis-smell words and so you can put them in and get those punters. It may of course not be a good strategy to get customers who cannot spell depending on what you are selling!

[mrbojangles]

Thanks again people for all of your invaluable advice. Once again it shows just what a top forum we have here on TV

you can also use colloquial words and misspelled words in your key words. People often mis-smell words and so you can put them in and get those punters. It may of course not be a good strategy to get customers who cannot spell depending on what you are selling!

Good pint Joe, i never thort of that won

[bkkmadness]

you can also use colloquial words and misspelled words in your key words. People often mis-smell words and so you can put them in and get those punters. It may of course not be a good strategy to get customers who cannot spell depending on what you are selling!

I know that was a popular method years ago, but now search engines have set up an automatic spelling suggestion thing so if you misspell something it they immediately ask you 'did you mean....' and I guess most people click straight on this and use the correct spelling to get results with. I bet it's cut the amount of traffic down for people that use misspelled keywords in order to get hits.

Besides that, you bring all these people to your website which I should be showing your professionalism in your industry, and your website has the product your selling spelled wrong all over it! That'd turn me off in a second, a bit too much of a 'mickey mouse operation' for my liking.

Better to find unusual but well searched for key phrases that your competitors do not rank well for and build pages of content around them.

Edited December 6, 2006 by bkkmadness

[mark lamai]

other useful thing is to check the server logs.

show when robots went thru and what pages were scanned.

shows search phrases that found you

and lots of other stuff

Links to external sites are nowadays VITAL for google.

as many as you can get, get em....dont worry about relevance.

be careful of 'adwords' they can cost heaps...

in the last few years it has become harder and harder for small sites to get a good ranking.

money and power predictably are increasingly owning the www

some sites are about search engines and how they work,

e.g. searchenginewatch

but google and others dont disclose a lot of how their robots work,

so it can be some guesswork and trial and error,

its actually a hel_l of a lot of work..

used to be issues in robots following links with variables (the ?xxxx after the name and extension).

using frames is still a no-no i believe, cannot be followed.

[mrbojangles]

Cheers again chaps

I've been doing some fishing around for various info and found this http://www.axandra-web-site-promotion-soft...-10-ranking.htm

Has anyone heard of this? If so, what do you think?

Cheers

[cdnvic]

These search engine optomisation programs are almost always worthless. Often they involve doin things that work in the short term but in the long run will hurt your Google rankings if not getting you delisted altogether. If you want to learn about SEO you should join Google groups and read what experienced webmasters are saying.

There's no quick way to being noticed without paying. Setting up some link exchanges with well ranked sites will give you a start at building your pageranking, the rest is pretty much organic.

Forget anything that promises you high pageranking, or offers to submit you to 400 search engines. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are 95% of the market, and easy to do yourself.

[mrbojangles]

These search engine optomisation programs are almost always worthless. Often they involve doin things that work in the short term but in the long run will hurt your Google rankings if not getting you delisted altogether. If you want to learn about SEO you should join Google groups and read what experienced webmasters are saying.

There's no quick way to being noticed without paying. Setting up some link exchanges with well ranked sites will give you a start at building your pageranking, the rest is pretty much organic.

Forget anything that promises you high pageranking, or offers to submit you to 400 search engines. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are 95% of the market, and easy to do yourself.

Cheers cdnviv