In the past I've used FFA's, Search Engine Submissions, And Classifieds but got almost no results. The only thing I've been able to get hits out of was a combination of e-mail and message board spam.
Spam is not what I want to be using and no one wants me to spam their boards. I have some meta name="keywords" in place, and will make some submissions. But, how does it really work?
Does the spider web effect work? {aka link exchanges and the like} I know that blogs with googlebombing can get a phrase linked to a page... but is there a legitimate technique that will work as well?
I've looked at some top ten listings in google, yahoo and others that show no "keywords" at all in their heads.
Whats the deal? Is it now pay to be seen? How does the Asylum get listed so well?
[edit] Had to clean up some major gaffs... what has happened to my spellling and grammar?[/edit]
From: A graveyard of dreams Insane since: Mar 2001
posted 04-18-2004 02:11
I think the most important thing to do if you want your page to rank well is to code your page sematicly correct. The biggest pay of with that is that you'll get less non-content tags etc on the page, so most what the browser loads is content. Another thing is that with sematicly correct code the search engine will have some idea as to what kind of content it is reading. It is important to use the <h..> tags, since the search engine will pay more attention to what is inside the <h1> tag, than what might be inside a <div> tag. The <title> tag is also importat since search engines use that to tell what the current page is about. The <meta keyword..> tag isn't that important today, but it is nice to have.
The search phrase you're after should also be used a couple of times on the page, you should at least try to get in a <h1> or <h2> tag.
As you've guessed it is also important to get links to the page, and the better ranked the page linking to your page is the better it is for your page. Something you might not have guessed though is that it also help your page to link to other high ranked sites, but it accutally decreases your rating if you link to a site with a rating lower than yours.
The above holds for Google, not sure about the other search engines though...
_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio - Vim Tutorial -
Now for the obligatory dumb question... Whats <h1>? Is that the <head> tag?
I am almost ready to submit my site for review... I still wince when I think of the feedback I'll get. I am fairly n00b to html still... I know how to make glitchy things flicker, and can fumble around in frontpage enough to beat out most of the grade schoolers, but am lacking the text book coding skills that one would see on say BestBuy.com or some other high profile web page, SSI? he he he, whats that.
I am willing to learn more... I just need to do it yesterday in order to keep my job ... LOL!
But definitely thanks for the heads up... So if I read correctly, it's content, content, content. And then get some of that content into the <head> tag... right?
Oh, yeah what about those text links at the bottom of the page that I sometimes see... does that help?
Server-Side Include. Actually, DL (if I'm not mistaken) wrote a very useful intro tutorial about SSI over at Gurusnetwork. You might want to head over there if you're interested, although I prefer PHP to SSI.
If you're talking about a commercial site and hits are imperative to your business. You might want to check out Overture's Pay-for-Performance? Search. A buddy of mine uses this to ensure he's at the top of search engines. He says its works. He pays for each click but users who go to his website tend to purchase from him.
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 04-18-2004 06:48
I think that this whole thread is totally out of wack.
If you want to get hits you need to offer a worthwhile service, that is either offered by you in a better way than others in the field, or is the only service in the field. To tie in with this you also need some educational content to go along with your service. You must take the terms "service" and "educational" in a very broad sense.
Your personal site is not going to grab a whole lot of hits unless you offer something, such as unique, professional, and helpful tutorials, or stimulating articles. Your business site is not going to get many hits unless you can build yourself a presence through offline channels which latter turn into online channels, or you offer an exclusive online product that is useful and noone else has it.
Spamming is also not the correct ways to go about things. This doesn't generate "useful" traffic.
All of the talk of search word relevance and the like is mute, you should first figure out if you actually have something. Post the link to the site you are having trouble getting hits too. Without that any discussion on relevance is useless. Search engine hits don't come on their own, even with the optimizations.
Apparently I got some reading to do... WarMage you are absolutely right about the spam thing. I in no way want to go that route. I was just mentioning that in the past for my own personal goofball crap, thats the only thing that worked.
Although, there is one page that I made that occasionaly gets a hit or two just based on it's content... I forget the address ... err, it does show up in a subset of a google search though bipolar "the scream"
<p align=center><strong><font color="#160EB3" size="5">Computer Parts and Accessories </font></strong></p>
when it should be written simply:
code:
<h1>Computer Parts and Accessories</h1>
then you can control such things as font size and text alignment with a stylesheet.
A lot of your pages have generic title tags as well (Computers for People) when they could be "Video Editing Services - Computers for People" instead. Search engine relevance/ranking whatever, is based on content. Title and headlines are the best at telling the engines/indexes what the page is about.
Unfortunately you're going to have a TON of competition for keyword ranking with a "computer store". I'd suggest trying to find niche/super-relevant keywords/phrases and optimize for those. If you're going to do an online store you might look into an inventory xml feed for froogle too.
I don't think you have much hope of ranknig on the first page of any engine in that market truthfully. It would take years to rank for your keywords in my opinion. As WarMage said, you'd have to prove yourself useful to rank, that's not always the case, but for these types of keywords/phrases, there's no doubt about it.
I'm assuming that this is a store that has tradiotionally only sold to a local market? If that's the case you might wanna conquer that market before you try to take on the globe work in your location prominently if that sounds like a good idea. Then people that do more specifc/relevant searches to fulfill their needs, say "computer+parts+anytown+usa" will find you.
Thanks for the tips. I've been meaning to get to the titles but got sidetracked by other things.
And, the css thing still kinda scares me ... LOL! ... I used it in the sales/ folder to remove the underline on the white links in the side field of those pages.
quote:you have a big slab of JavaScript at the top so make it external.
How would I do that? I hate that big slab of Java in the <head>. But, I couldnt find an external button rollover script to use. I knnow the white buttons are kinda plain and stick out , but the boss likes having buttons on the side. I have some different graphics for them but havent uploaded the changes.
I am predominantly using FrontPage2003 now because it allows me to do the wysiswyg editing and I can work on the website without having to take additional steps to upload changes. "find and replace" is my new best friend...
But definitely I would like to get that block of java out of the head... it makes finding the beginning of my content more dificult when I am using notepad or some other editor, and apparently the web bots don't like it either.
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 04-22-2004 05:30
External just means where you put the code. If you want your code to be external you put it into a file called "[filename].js" and you would linke to it using <script type="text/javascript" src="[path]/[filename].js" />. Inline just means that the code is in the main file like you have already done.
Seriously, our business gets thousands upon thousands of hits from messageboards, and very little from search engines. Effective advertising and marketing is important for businesses. Messageboards are used by all kinds of people, and you never know who somone might know. We average a couple thousand hits a day, with no real marketing whatsoever. Most hits we get are referred from messageboards, in fact. We got over 5000 hits to our website, with no promotion at all, in the first week of operation, strictly from other sites we frequent. Just some food for thought.
Sanzen's signature is everything but discreet with the color scheme of
the Asylum
Marketing Ploy #235.... and it only took 5 minutes. I'll make something worthwhile after we gone working on the messageboard script and the tutorials.
One thing we DID do, to increase traffic to our website (which COULD be a deterrent to business, but it hasn't turned out that way) was make our site also a kind of web resource. So people come to our site and see our tutorials and our message boards(well message boards aren't done yet) and they think, "hey, these guys aren't messing around." And it could attract some potential clients.
Woo. That said: We just breached 10,000 hits since May 1st.
From: Rochester, New York, USA Insane since: May 2000
posted 05-08-2004 14:27
Yes, but are the hits you are getting from the graphic, or are they actually to your index.* file.
I can get thousands of hits to a graphic I post, but the number that actually convert to purposeful visits to my page is rather slim.
The next thing is that you are looking at hits, I could care less the number of hits I get on any particular site. I want to see how those hits convert to something useful.
Also if you are marketing a design firm on web design message boards you are targetting the wrong audience. 10,000 hits from web designers who are not going to ask for your services are 10,000 hits worth of wasted bandwidth.
I believe the best advirtising you can get for a small business is the kind that is generated in the traditional methods, you just need to add your website address to your advirtisments. For the small business, the web is like a receptionist who is always working, answering questions for people 24 hours a day.
There are a lot of hits just to the image itself, but i'm saying hits to our main page. The man just said he wanted to know how to get more hits to his site. I was just telling him how it worked for us
How many hits you get is irrelevant. What matters is how many of those users decide to buy your product. If you're getting hits through creating tutorials and/or posting in a forum, users most likely aren't there to buy your services. Instead you're just wasting bandwith.
meh, we've got like 50 gigs of bandwidth, and there is no such thing as a wasted visitor, thats ignorant. Because even if they dont 'buy' our product they might just know someone who needs a website built.
posted 04-18-2004 00:01
work in your location prominently if that sounds like a good idea. Then people that do more specifc/relevant searches to fulfill their needs, say "computer+parts+anytown+usa" will find you.
Content is #1 in attracting site viewers though, always remember that
I'll make something worthwhile after we gone working on the messageboard script and the tutorials.