Creating a Web presence?Follow

The wife and I have recently started our web site for the small business we’ve had for a number of years. It’s nothing special but it has the information on it we need. I used FrontPage to build it mainly because I’m stupid at web design.

The question is this.

How do I make it so Google and the like know I’m there? I’ve signed up with Google but nothing still shows up even when I type in the actual web address.

Is there a way to do this without dumping more $$ into it?


Thanks!

Ok, the quick answer is, get links to your site from other business.

Here is a nice article that I've used to help do this.

http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/seo/ht/google.htm

edit: also check out this link

http://scribbling.net/help_the_googlebot_understand_your_web_site

There are a few things you can do to help your site get noticed on google quicker. Google uses what is called a spider system to browse your sites and parse out relavent information to add to it's searches. The more times it finds your companies name, the higher up the list it goes.

Make sure that your site is ABLE to be parsed by google's spiders if you want to get on their searches. That article should explain how to test that.

There are services out there that can help "add" your site to a number of search engines. Many of these services add you to hundreds of search engines that I've never heard of, but I guess it couldn't hurt.

Also, make sure you have good descriptive

<META>

tags in every page header of your site. Search engines like metacrawler use those to help find your site.

Good Luck! If you need your site linked from another, let me know...shoot me a URL and I'll see if I can get it put up on some places.

Edited, Tue Apr 4 12:36:45 2006 by Frakkor

The term for what you are trying to accomplish is called "search engine optimization". Google that and you will be able to find information on what you need to do to optimize your code, content, server and how to get submitted to the top 10 search engines.

Stay away from the paid services and such until you understand what it is you need to do, and determine if you have the ability to do it.

For fun type "riding club niagara" into any search engine and check out the first link that comes up. (I run that site. )

Good luck goat boy.




Edited, Tue Apr 4 12:37:45 2006 by Elderon

Submission services suck, however there is a lot more to the algorythm than just meta tags. I will mention that are are some good software tools that you can buy to help you do the job and determine what to improve once you understand fully what the elements are.



edit: sp

Edited, Tue Apr 4 12:46:44 2006 by Elderon

Very true statement. It is 90% about figuring out what keywords people are going to type to get to your page, then "optimizing" based on that phrase or phrases. The last 10% is the actual work you do to realize that plan.

Create posts on a bunch of random forums promising people $50 to visit your site. That always works!

Elderon? Dat joo?

Hey there Aegis I am fairly new to Allakhazam but spend a ton of time sitting here in these forums wasting time. I have seen plenty of your posts and tend to agree with your opinions on some of these rediculous issues :). I must say this post sparked a ton of interest. To get to the point, I am an online marketing consultant with Internet Advancement (www.internetadvancement.com) we sell programs that achieve exactly what it is you and your wife are looking for. My firm has been in business for 9 and half years now and know how to achieve results. Alot of these posts regarding "how your site will be seen by google" are very valid bits of information. Regardless tho, without a submission routine more aggressive than WHOEVER your competition is you will not see your site ranked above theirs. it goes like this:

1. Your Meta-tag content must be in a format easily read by the robots or crawlers that Major Search engines send out to index your site.

2. You have to be submitting your site on a regular basis to each of the search engines in which you wish to be ranked. You can rank without doing this, but it comes down to the fact that if someone else is submitting more aggressively they will pass you. The hard part with this is that over-submitting your site can and will eventually get you blacklisted from that engine.

3. Link Popularity. This is the sole determining factor in who gets the top rank. The more sites out there that are RELEVANT to your page content that are linking to you, the higher link-popularity you have. Its simply a numbers game at this point. I sent you a PM with my contact info if you would like to discuss this over the telephone. I would be more than happy to get more in depth with you about some strategies to get you started in the right direction. We wont even look at my programs unless you want to.

Regarding the services that place your site on the first page under a certain key-word for a nominal fee, these are called Pay-per-click campaigns. As simple as it sounds, you bid on a space under a certain key-word. Every time someone clicks on your site, you pay the amount you bid for that space (i.e 16 cents or whatever...Ive seen as high as 8$ a click) This is obviously effective because your site WILL get seen. But....Statistics show that only 20% of people even look at the sponsored links when searching so you would be potentially missing out on 80% of your potential market. These services can NEVER place you in the generic listings. These generic listings are all governed by algorythms that are simply paying attention to the 3 points i listed prior.

Elderon has a very good grasp on what it takes. And you can DEFINATELY achieve rankings without paying a dime. It is just going to take a lot of work and focus.

P.S. My firm has methods of achieving results that actually WARRANT legitimate first page rankings in the generic listings. I understand you have no desire to invest capital but in terms of the info I have to offer we are the best at what we do. If you are interested in making an investment to promote your site we can talk about that too, but i will give you the info you need just the same. If I dont hear back from you, I wish you success with your business.

Edit: it should have read Jophiel has a great grasp on what it takes....

Thanks for all the info!

Have a bunch of great ideas here to get working on. I'll start plugging away and see how it goes.


Thanks again!

They're still used, crawlers have just installed many guards against exploiting. From removing doubles and similar entries, and lowering value on entries that don't seem to have any relation to the content, to actually lowering ranking on some engines for people who attempt "World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft" to the n'th degree in an attempt to top the search - there are many deterents to stop people from simply overstuffing their meta tags. Not so much "out of style" just not the best option anymore.

The newest fad I know of are sites that have prefixes (ex. "catch.blah.com, search.blah.com, etc") where many search engines catalog each prefix as a seperate site and so they make a blank page with as many single links to the other prefixes as well as the main "actual" page so as to build up link backs. It's not in good taste but many do it.