Search Engine Optimizations

silence

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i am acctually not sure where to put this, so i decided on "software".
any of you guys have any experience with it?... we just started offering that as service after we spent months optimizing our own site for major keywords (major for us offcourse).

so if there are any good advices around.... i am all ears....;)
 
  • Validate your pages against whatever doctype you use. Create a well-formed document that uses headings correctly, such as H1 etc.
  • Use the title attribute to describe all links etc. and make sure all ALT text is completed.
  • Use summary attribute for important tables
  • Make sure objects like flash movies and applets have appropriate text alternatives
  • Make sure your index page contains appropriate keywords within the actually BODY text and not just in META KEYWORD tags (since most search engines now ignore meta tags from over abuse).
 
well... you can always check my site for that.. :)
we do pretty well, but i was hoping for some expriences with getting backlinks and submitting sites to engines and directories....

any software that is worthy? what to avoid? .. i know that Google penalizes FFA listings and large link exchanges.... i am really going into all this and if there are people with some stories about what they did and how... or if they want to recommend something, i am open to everything..
 
Well, there's no point submitting your site to multiple search engines etc. if it won't index very well. You'll be suprised how much having a well-formed document makes to how easily a page gets indexed and it's subsequent ranking. It's the one thing most people ignore, mainly because most designers don't understand HTML :)

Well, there are 3rd party websites and tools that promise to submit your site to every search engine under the sun (indeed, my company produces one ourself). However, I don't hold much faith in them.

Firstly, it's now very difficult to write a program that will auto-submit a URL to multiple search engines. This is mainly because the search engine companies have got wise to this practice and now most require registration or you have to enter a special code derived from an randomly generated image. This means that most auto-submission tools end up spamming your site to lots of tiny, irrelevent search engines and worse.

Personally I think the best policy is to submit your site manually to the main big searches yourself - Google, DMOZ Open Directory, Yahoo, Lycos, Altavista. Manually submitting doesn't take long and you can tailor your input correctly. Then search out specialist directories that are of relevance to your particular site and again submit manually, tailoring your keywords to how the directory works. Begging other sites to cross-link is usually a waste of time and just annoys people - if your site is useful people will link to you, simple as that. If you want a high-ranking then buy Google AdWords, it's worth it for any business.
 
heh.... you are 100% right, thats exactlly what i been doing.
i also know some engines dont like multiple submissions, so using some software is out of question after doing it over 50 times.

as i said, my own company's site ranks pretty well, but now that we offer SEO as service i am asking for any kind of advice i can get....
people expect miracles.... in less then month.... which is something noone can deliver... specially on Google. (sandbox)

well.... its "wait and see" game... and i know that, but if i lose thse first customers, then i can forget about SEO, which is (as one friend told me) "3 months of hard work, 3 months of making small changes, 6 months of watching you bank account getting bigger"....

thnx for advices and everything.... submitting by hand is PITA.... hate that ;)
 
Yeah, ufortunately a lot of clients have totally unreasonable expectations of what can be done to increase their search engine rankings. We had one recently come to us who insisted that, as part of the contract, we would have to place him in the top 10 Google ranking for a long list of (very generic) keywords. It's hard to explain that they'd be lucky if their crappy website made it in the top 10,000...

As you say you also have to be patient - most free submissions might not even appear in a major search engine for a month or more after submission. Clients, however, seem to expect it to be instant.

One site I would recommend for more info is http://www.webmasterworld.com/ - check out their search engine promotion forum for some tips. Good luck!
 
Yes! Writing well formed valid (X)HTML is vastly underappreciated when it comes to improving search rankings. In addition to all the tips Diplo gave the most prominent that pops to mind is to make proper use of the TITLE element. Keep it as unique as possible, relevant to each particular page, and not excessively long.

Both Google and your users will be much happier for it.

Edit: Spelling.
 
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Diplo said:
Yeah, ufortunately a lot of clients have totally unreasonable expectations of what can be done to increase their search engine rankings. We had one recently come to us who insisted that, as part of the contract, we would have to place him in the top 10 Google ranking for a long list of (very generic) keywords. It's hard to explain that they'd be lucky if their crappy website made it in the top 10,000...

As you say you also have to be patient - most free submissions might not even appear in a major search engine for a month or more after submission. Clients, however, seem to expect it to be instant.

One site I would recommend for more info is http://www.webmasterworld.com/ - check out their search engine promotion forum for some tips. Good luck!

tell me about it.... i have client that wants us to optimize for "real estate".....
i just showed him that ther is 280 000 000 result for that on google... so he backed off.
he is now going for some other keywords and ADWords for main ones.... IMO, really good combo....


there is no way to get site high into "real estate" in less then year or more.... and high == first 10 pages....
 
Zaphod said:
Yes! Writing well formed valid (X)HTML is vastly underappreciated when it comes to improving search rankings. In addition to all the tips Diplo gave the most prominent that pops to mind is to make proper use of the TITLE element. Keep it as unique as possible, relevant to each particular page, and not excessively long.

Both Google and your users will be much happier for it.

Edit: Spelling.


thnx...i learned that one when i optimized my site for some words that are bringing us business... like "cd vizitke" or "vizualni identitet" (yap, croatian words, but you check us on Google, Yahoo and MSN for them)

;)

thnx guys.... SEO is much work and we just entered it..... i just dont want to screw client... i can talk them into anything, like waiting and such, but using some shortcuts i saw is prolly more trouble then good....
 
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