How do I get a website on a search engine ?
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How do I get a website on a search engine ?
Hi All,
My son has just designed a website for a local artist friend of ours. The site is up and running but is very much in its infancy so will obviously need a few tweaks. My question is how does he go about getting it onto a search engine? Do you have to pay? Is it simply a matter of registering? I imagine there will be countless 'solutions' on google but I'd rather pick the brains of people who know the potential traps.
Thanks in advance.
My son has just designed a website for a local artist friend of ours. The site is up and running but is very much in its infancy so will obviously need a few tweaks. My question is how does he go about getting it onto a search engine? Do you have to pay? Is it simply a matter of registering? I imagine there will be countless 'solutions' on google but I'd rather pick the brains of people who know the potential traps.
Thanks in advance.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry these days, and it's a jungle out there. Google and other are constantly tweaking things to stop SEO comment spammers and other abuses, which work on the principle that a site with lots of links to it are more valued.
I've never used SEO, but I have found that unique "keywords" always get through. If what your son's friend is offering is the same as many others are offering, SEO can give a site a temporary boost, at a price, but what if everyone thinks the same way and does the same things? It's going to be an uphill struggle for attention. (see "attention economy")
I've come to the conclusion that normal business rules apply, except that the market is bigger. You need to have a "unique selling point" in your market, the kind of thing that a bank manager would use in evaluating your business plan for a loan. The difference is that the markets for luxuries like art are now global, and highly competitive.
Example: three years ago I bought a piece of musical gear, an Akai MPC1000 sampler/drum machine, and wrote a FAQ on it based on my experiences. It's always near the top of any search for "MPC1000 FAQ", if not the top, because there are not many relevant FAQs around. I could have made some money from relevant ads, but I'm using free web hosting by wordpress.com, which doesn't support ads, but also costs me nothing.
I've never used SEO, but I have found that unique "keywords" always get through. If what your son's friend is offering is the same as many others are offering, SEO can give a site a temporary boost, at a price, but what if everyone thinks the same way and does the same things? It's going to be an uphill struggle for attention. (see "attention economy")
I've come to the conclusion that normal business rules apply, except that the market is bigger. You need to have a "unique selling point" in your market, the kind of thing that a bank manager would use in evaluating your business plan for a loan. The difference is that the markets for luxuries like art are now global, and highly competitive.
Example: three years ago I bought a piece of musical gear, an Akai MPC1000 sampler/drum machine, and wrote a FAQ on it based on my experiences. It's always near the top of any search for "MPC1000 FAQ", if not the top, because there are not many relevant FAQs around. I could have made some money from relevant ads, but I'm using free web hosting by wordpress.com, which doesn't support ads, but also costs me nothing.
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You could start by registering the website URL in googles index by here http://www.google.ie/addurl/?continue=/addurl
In google, aside from keywords, a sites rating on Google also depends on links to the site from other sites of similar content etc. So for instance if other artists had links from their site to your friends site that would potentially boost the rating in Google and bring that site closer to the first page of results, and this also works vice versa using links from your site to other websites.
Make sure all your pages on the site have keywords assigned which reflect the page content and make sure the HTML page source is well structured, indented and generally good tidy HTML.
In google, aside from keywords, a sites rating on Google also depends on links to the site from other sites of similar content etc. So for instance if other artists had links from their site to your friends site that would potentially boost the rating in Google and bring that site closer to the first page of results, and this also works vice versa using links from your site to other websites.
Make sure all your pages on the site have keywords assigned which reflect the page content and make sure the HTML page source is well structured, indented and generally good tidy HTML.
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Include Meta tags into the HTML as well, Meta tags are things that the search engine can use, let's take airliners.net. The meta tags could be "pictures - aircraft - aeroplane - photo - airline - cockpit views" etc etc.
Basically it helps a search engine locate your site by typing in "abnormal" words etc that can be associated with your site, so it doesn't just look at the domain name.
As for the HTML coding for this, well I can't remember, but I'm sure if you google it you will get some answers
Dean
Basically it helps a search engine locate your site by typing in "abnormal" words etc that can be associated with your site, so it doesn't just look at the domain name.
As for the HTML coding for this, well I can't remember, but I'm sure if you google it you will get some answers
Dean
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This works for me: (NB I'm SURE it isn't perfect
)
<head><title>whiz.co.uk</title>
<meta name="Keywords" content="Sausages,bananas,cuckoo clocks"><meta name="Author" content="WhizJunior"></head>
)<head><title>whiz.co.uk</title>
<meta name="Keywords" content="Sausages,bananas,cuckoo clocks"><meta name="Author" content="WhizJunior"></head>
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SEO is a skill you wont get right first time...
Go to Google Web-Master Central and Register for there helper tools and analytics, these can help.
As said, go to the search engines websites, all have free submissions, they might not advertise this, but most do. Once you are in one, then others tend to follow in anycase.
Google, MSN, Yahoo are the main places you want to focus.
The make the page as best as possible, you need to add (Meta Tags) (Meta Title) (Meta Description). To get the best results, each any every page should have these three attributes in a unique sense, so dont just copy and paste the same data, make it relevent to the page.
In each of the three, dont repeat the same word more than three times. If you put, Camera, Digital Camera, Film Camera, DSLR Cameta, Etc Camera this would have Camera Five Times, so watch it.
Make sure that each Meta Tag Keyword is in the page and is visable. Times of hiding text, or making it blend into the background have gone. If you do this, Google know, and that will hit your placement.
Make sure you use <H1> AND <H2> tags. The main keyword of the page should be in this title/heading. Each page should have one or at the most two words to sum it up. Images have <alt> tags, get the keyword in there too.
There are a million and one other things you can do, each thing helping a very little, but the sum of them help heaps. The more pages and the more optimised a page is, the better. Type in Google a keyword and then see who comes up tops and check what they have used in their tag lines.
EBay are masters at SEO. Every page has different Keywords, Descriptions, titles, headings and text, each page is unique, and thats why they are more or less on each search.
-----
Here is some sample HTML code to demonstrate the key items to a good page layout.
-----
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="KEYWORDS GO HERE" />
<meta name="description" content="DESCRIPTION GOES HERE" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>TITLE ONE GOES HERE</h1>
<h2>TITLE TWO GOES HERE </h2>
<p>PUT SOME RELEVENT TEXT HERE THAT INCLUDE ALL THE KEYWORDS</p>
</body>
-----
I use a web forum called
www.jimworld.com
Ask as much and what you like here, its all about SEO, there are many masters there, its all free, and read all the other articles, and just keep track of your progress, you can use Google Web-Master Central to do that.
Go to Google Web-Master Central and Register for there helper tools and analytics, these can help.
As said, go to the search engines websites, all have free submissions, they might not advertise this, but most do. Once you are in one, then others tend to follow in anycase.
Google, MSN, Yahoo are the main places you want to focus.
The make the page as best as possible, you need to add (Meta Tags) (Meta Title) (Meta Description). To get the best results, each any every page should have these three attributes in a unique sense, so dont just copy and paste the same data, make it relevent to the page.
In each of the three, dont repeat the same word more than three times. If you put, Camera, Digital Camera, Film Camera, DSLR Cameta, Etc Camera this would have Camera Five Times, so watch it.
Make sure that each Meta Tag Keyword is in the page and is visable. Times of hiding text, or making it blend into the background have gone. If you do this, Google know, and that will hit your placement.
Make sure you use <H1> AND <H2> tags. The main keyword of the page should be in this title/heading. Each page should have one or at the most two words to sum it up. Images have <alt> tags, get the keyword in there too.
There are a million and one other things you can do, each thing helping a very little, but the sum of them help heaps. The more pages and the more optimised a page is, the better. Type in Google a keyword and then see who comes up tops and check what they have used in their tag lines.
EBay are masters at SEO. Every page has different Keywords, Descriptions, titles, headings and text, each page is unique, and thats why they are more or less on each search.
-----
Here is some sample HTML code to demonstrate the key items to a good page layout.
-----
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="KEYWORDS GO HERE" />
<meta name="description" content="DESCRIPTION GOES HERE" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>TITLE ONE GOES HERE</h1>
<h2>TITLE TWO GOES HERE </h2>
<p>PUT SOME RELEVENT TEXT HERE THAT INCLUDE ALL THE KEYWORDS</p>
</body>
-----
I use a web forum called
www.jimworld.com
Ask as much and what you like here, its all about SEO, there are many masters there, its all free, and read all the other articles, and just keep track of your progress, you can use Google Web-Master Central to do that.
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As well as the "suggest url" option on the main engines, don't forget to get listed on www.dmoz.org as their database is used by some of the mainstream providers like AOL.
Don't capitalise any of the words in your meta tags. The word Pilot would only be found if someone typed it as such whereas pilot would be found however the word was capitalised (or not) in a search engine.
There are a hundred other tricks like making sure your preferred search terms are included in the first 20 or so words on the page to putting single pixels, same colour as background against the page named as your keywords, eg pilot.gif
Good luck!
Don't capitalise any of the words in your meta tags. The word Pilot would only be found if someone typed it as such whereas pilot would be found however the word was capitalised (or not) in a search engine.
There are a hundred other tricks like making sure your preferred search terms are included in the first 20 or so words on the page to putting single pixels, same colour as background against the page named as your keywords, eg pilot.gif
Good luck!
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Hi everyone,
I'm surprise the pros here haven't suggested Web Position Gold (http://www.web-positiongold.com/)
It analyses your page and very directly tells you how to improve the page layout and content for your selected keywords. It works by analysing the pages within search engine results pages and then reverse engineering to work out (pretty acuately) what is required for top lists. It's all quite straight forward but it's easy to trip up by using keywords to often, not in the right place, to often in links for example.
Anyway there's a free trial for the software so just use if for 30 days or whatever it is then leave it - the algorithms don't change that much over time. Unless you're in a very competitive industry there's no need to go OTT.
It may take a few weeks for new rankings to take effect (or even a 3-4 months if your website has very little traffic).
Have fun!
MrS
p.s. oh and that software will tell you to get a domain with your target keywords in so do that first as it's a big advantage, important if you don't have many incoming links. Page names can be keyword targetted but the main domain is the important bit.
p.p.s. that software's good - I'm number 1 on google for my target keyphrase - it only took basis computer knowledge to get done
I'm surprise the pros here haven't suggested Web Position Gold (http://www.web-positiongold.com/)
It analyses your page and very directly tells you how to improve the page layout and content for your selected keywords. It works by analysing the pages within search engine results pages and then reverse engineering to work out (pretty acuately) what is required for top lists. It's all quite straight forward but it's easy to trip up by using keywords to often, not in the right place, to often in links for example.
Anyway there's a free trial for the software so just use if for 30 days or whatever it is then leave it - the algorithms don't change that much over time. Unless you're in a very competitive industry there's no need to go OTT.
It may take a few weeks for new rankings to take effect (or even a 3-4 months if your website has very little traffic).
Have fun!
MrS
p.s. oh and that software will tell you to get a domain with your target keywords in so do that first as it's a big advantage, important if you don't have many incoming links. Page names can be keyword targetted but the main domain is the important bit.
p.p.s. that software's good - I'm number 1 on google for my target keyphrase - it only took basis computer knowledge to get done
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Some great info there guys, theres enough to keep him locked in his bedroom for months ! I'll start him off with mrsurrey's suggestion of positiongold.com I'm hoping he knows more about tags and meta tags than I do . Cheers !!
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The more people who go there, the more popular it becomes and then google will automatically pick up on it.
As long as you've got at least 30-50 friends who just browse on that site at least once a night - then you might not even have to pay google or the others at all for indexing.
As long as you've got at least 30-50 friends who just browse on that site at least once a night - then you might not even have to pay google or the others at all for indexing.
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The following has worked for me.
(1) Provide a popular free public service on my site.
(2) Wait a few years.
(3) Observe that I never leave the front page of Google.
All this is with no messing around with keywords or paying SEO cowboys or any of the various forms of cheating (eg getting one's mates to put up links) that only work until the next algorithm revamp in five minutes' time (if that).
(And in passing the Google advertising revenue pays the hosting costs several times over.)
(1) Provide a popular free public service on my site.
(2) Wait a few years.
(3) Observe that I never leave the front page of Google.
All this is with no messing around with keywords or paying SEO cowboys or any of the various forms of cheating (eg getting one's mates to put up links) that only work until the next algorithm revamp in five minutes' time (if that).
(And in passing the Google advertising revenue pays the hosting costs several times over.)
