How do you get your website seen?

[alieb]

Can anyone explain in really simple terms how to get a website seen. I have read so much but it is always in such techno jargan that my head begins to bubble up and threaten to explode - lol!!! I am not familiar with coding and so I am never sure when to paste and where! Please help!

www.amazonfreshhairsupplies.co.uk

[MandyJay]

Hi,
It is not easy to give a lesson in website optimisation etc ..... I mean there are whole forums just dedicated to how to get a website on page 1 of search engine results. It would take pages to explain every little trick in the book.... lol ....

You need the basics.

Metatags. Do a google and you will come up with several sites that give you step by step instructions on how to use them.

Page title. You need to give a short but meaningful title to each page.

Images. All your images need the "alt" descriptions. This helps search engines and also people with images turned off or using screen readers.

Links. Links should also have "alt" text i.e. when you mouse over you see a pop up of what the link is ... Search engines will also read that.

make sure your image file names are meaningful. i.e. if you have a bottle of Mr. Brown's Shampoo ... the image should not be called image1.jpg but should be called say "browns-shampoo.jpg" ......

Those are just for starters .....

You can also visit the Google Webmasters discussion group here http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

Have a good read and see what people are doing.

Read this forums SEngine section, read some of the posts etc. The words may not mean much but do a google of them learn what they mean or ask here what a certain word means, the more you read the more you will understand and then posts etc will fall into place ....

You also have to remember you are selling popular products with hundreds if not thousands of websites selling similar ;products .... the best you can do is optimise your site for Search Engines ... but you will always get sites that pay for adverts. Try and get your site listed on other sites. Find related (must be related, dont choose non related) sites and see if they will ;put a link to your site on theirs. Often though you have to pay for links. DONT whatever you do just go getting your site linked on all and sundry and SE dont likethat. Only get it on related sites. But you will be in com;petition with all the other sites on the net that are selling similar products. What I am trying to say is it will be very hard to get a good listing with so many othersites there who maybe have been there for several years and perhaps have very well known company names ...... all you can do is your best but no guarantees anything will get your site listed near the top of SE results.

Do NOT believe any company that says they can get you listed in top 10 for £99 or whatever .... they are lying to you!!! There is no magic wand .....


Hope that helps

MJ

[wilbilj]

Another thing you can do is add a site map.

Here is a tool that is helpful in helping with google and yahoo:
Site map tool

[kitschulte]

all search engines want consistent content as far as trusting your site. be sure your title text (it's what shows at the top of your browser when you're viewing your page) is also repeated in the body text of your page. in other words you want your title to truly tell what your page is about. also get as many backlinks as you can - one way is to post to forums, making sure your web address is included. google considers backlinks as an indicator of popularity.

[malcolm]

Hello
You have to be careful with backlinks. Google really only like related backlinks. I have known sites get thrust right to the bottom of the scale becuase they just posted anywhere and everywhere including multiple forums which had no related interest. Also stay away from sites that exchange links, often regarded as link farms. They will not do your site any good. Yes you want backlinks but only with trusted sites and ones that are related to your own.

~ malc ~

[MandyJay]

Hi kitschulte, nice to see you back.
Yes that is a good help to mention the title tag, that is very important.

<title>your page title</title>

often that can end right down near the bottom of all the head stuff and should be immediately under the <head>. Good call.

I have to agree with Malcolm on the links. Certainly lots of backlinks are good, but not to the extent you are just posting links on sites for the sake of it. They do need to be to related sites. Google and others are cutting down on the "cheating" of links. They need to be on good quality sites and mainly related sites.

TTFN
MJ

Do NOT believe any company that says they can get you listed in top 10 for £99 or whatever .... they are lying to you!!! There is no magic wand .....


Hope that helps

MJ

This is good advice from MJ. I know a person that was paying $$$$ a month to get her site listed on the front page of Google. A year later she's still on page 15 in Google.
For the last 12 months we've been keeping a daily record of what search engines most of our hits come from. Be surprised to know that GOOGLE is not number one. Yahoo is leading Google by a margin of 28 to 1 over a 12 month period with Bing in 2nd place. Google is 3rd. We're on the 1st page in most all the major search engines and on Google we just bounce up and down back and forth from the 1st page to sometimes the 3rd page. Sometimes we'll find them on the 5th page one day and the next back on the 1st page.
Our sites are also not new sites and have been around for some years and we also have then targeted to a certain region but we do get a lot of hits from all over the world.
We've also noticed on Google that the Sites such as Mante, Yellow and White Pages, etc seem to be the top sites on Google showing up on the 1st page. Sometimes we have been the only actual web site on the front page being smootherd by the above mentioned sites.
We have established a few good solid back links over the years all in order with our business but it takes time and effort to get these important related back links and they do help without a doubt.



tuller

[MandyJay]

Hi Tuller,
I can rely on you to find past advice, lol .. I think my brain is getting too old for this now.

Interesting facts you state there about the Search Engines. To be honest I have never done a sort of "survey" of where my customers come from or searches come from, perhaps I should. Can you determine whether there is any other pattern regarding the SE .... do the yahoo users have anything in common if you get what I mean etc etc?

Cheers
MJ

Sorry MJ, I just now saw this thread again and your post. I'll look over all the info we kept records on for 12 months and do a more or less show and tell thread as to what we discovered about our sites and the search engines.