slighty OT: Search engine exposure for websites?

[Christopher Nichols]

Hey guys...

 

I have a few questions regarding search engine exposure. This is actually for my mother's website, but I will need it for my own when I get it up and running. I helped my mother get her website up and runing and it is now on the web etc.. great! Thanks to all that help me find a provider. Now I am trying to get it exposed on the web through search engines etc... I have briefly found that there are paid services that help this happen for you. I don't want to pay for this. What can I do quickly and freely to get some web exposure for the site?

 

first... here is the site... it is super simple for now. It is for custom hand pained plates that she is doing.

 

http://www.florianartifacts.com

 

1 - All the text are images done in image ready to insure the best formating and font. I did add an ALT="..." to the images so that search engines can read the text. Is that enough?

2 - the the website hosting place has a "search engine submit" section but nothing really seemed to happen... does it take a while to get out there? If so how long?

3 - what other tools should I use to help advertise the page? When I go to google and type "florian artifacts" I get nothing.

4 - I added keyword meta tags on the page too. Should that help? Do I need more?

 

Any help on this would be great.

[quizzy]

when you submit them in a search engine, it allways takes a while to have it searchable.... sometimes up to 3 weeks...

[Christopher Nichols]

that's good to know.... what about after you update it? do you need to resubmit things, or do they pick those things up on their own?

[MrCAD]

hello Christopher...well Search engine is a huge topic to be talked about...I myself do alot of optimization almost everyday. You need to keep in mind alot of things before you actually get started. Seeing today's competition for ranking the website on the top 10 while searching is getting difficult. The website which is clean (not spammed) ranks well. There are alot of secrets which I may not disclose (lol) but I will try as much as I can to help you.

 

To help you improve let me start asking you some questions which you need to think about.

 

1. which search engine do you want to rank your website well on ?

2. how many pages do you have on your site ?

3. what are the keywords, keyphrases that you want to rank your website with ?

4. have you started backlinking ?

 

Apart from this have you added the google toolbar ? if not then add it.

 

I checked your url and it seems that it will take a few months for it to rank well after you make the changes that I would suggest you..(first answer the above questions) I asked you.

 

cheers

 

Meher Thakker

http://www.mr-cad.com

http://www.drapefx.com

[MrCAD]

a suggestion from your above discussion...

 

Very Important

please donot re-submit your website if you have already done it once.

 

and

 

If you have'nt ever submitted to any search engines do not even bother to do it...

why did I say that???

The better way off for the search engine to find you is by linking your website to other urls who already have PR (page ranks)..for example if you add your url on the CGA links section the search engine robots will automatically find you faster than you submitting to search engines. CGA is scanned everyday by googlebot (one of the robots) so if you have your url added here google will find you in 1 day (secret #1) ... hope you get what I am trying to mention.

 

more to come soon..

 

Meher Thakker

http://www.mr-cad.com

http://www.drapefx.com

[Christopher Nichols]

Thank you Meher... I think I am getting most of what you are saying. To Answer your questions

 

1- the obvious ones... Yahoo and Google

2- just one page right now, will have an FAQ soon

3- the keywords and keyphrases are not that great from what I have been reading

4- no backlinking yet... from what I gather from you, this is the most important.

[MrCAD]

ok..

google and yahoo is a good choice..if you optimize your pages for google it will obviously effect yahoo searches too.

 

I still wished that you decided on your keywords/keyphrases since its the most important thing for your own site to rank well.

 

things that google considers..when a keyword/keyphrase is searched

 

1. Domain name, sub domain, path name and file name

2. proper page flow..single pages normally dont help much in page ranking.

for example..

you have a main.htm which has say 3 subpages/links

feedback.htm

faq.htm

contact.htm

 

all these 3 pages should have a link back to the main.htm

 

3. Important part is the title of the page (remember not to change it frequently)

 

4. use Metatags..check CGA's homepage

 

5. A tip for your existing url http://www.florianartifacts.com/..

I dont see any text...what will google or yahoo search for ?

"Our old world

hand-painted xxxxx"

 

you have used images.... I would use normal text of the same size of the image.

 

6. and above all you need to backlink your site http://www.florianartifacts.com/ as much as possible to all the relative sites of your subject. example : an arch site xyzarch.com if linked to Cgarchitect.com makes sense for google to rank xyzarch.com well...but if xyzarch.com is linked to maybe a gaming site then google knows that you are simply spamming (well no one knows the inner secrets of google algos) but its through experience that I am sharing this thought.

 

Dont link to sites which have a grey bar (on the Page rank)..why ?? its because those sites are not cached by google or punished by google.

 

if you have'nt submitted you url to http://www.dmoz.org please do it first..most important for google. Remember be very careful while submitting (especially the words you use) .. u need to study your competitors sites and then format your text. Dmoz is not a search engine so it does not have a bot to spider your site that is why you will have to manully insert your url.

 

 

well I guess this would be a good start for you,

 

good luck,

 

Meher Thakker

http://www.mr-cad.com

http://www.drapefx.com