Need Help Getting website to show up in Search Engines

demtro · #1 22-Sep-2005, 15:45

I have a Genealogy website that I have built and maintain. I submitted the website to all the popular search engines and it does show up when I do a search but it shows up like 20 pages back in the search. I know there are ways to add metatages or keywords or other items regarding relevance to a page to get it to show up closer to the beginning of the search. I understand I may not ever get it to the first page or 2 but I would like to do everything I can to get it as close as possible. The website is www.ourfamilygenealogy.com It is presently done in Front page using tables. I am in the process of redesigning the site but could use any input anybody has.

Thanks

admin · #2 22-Sep-2005, 17:49

I would agree that a redesign is probably a very good idea if your concern is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) now.

Briefly, I can suggest the following:

Ensure your HTML (markup) is valid. You must understand that search engines simply look for matching patterns when "processing" a web page it has just crawled. So, having invalid markup simply adds to the possibility that some of your content is being "hidden" or ignored, unwittingly.
Incorporate your targeted (and relevant) keywords in the <title> tag.
Use headings appropriately i.e. <h1>, <h2>, etc.
Leave search engine friendly links to the other, internal pages so the search engine bots can also follow through to them.
It is recommended that you use absolute links e.g. <a href="http://www.ourfamilygenealogy.org/" title="Our Family Genealogy Homepage">.
Add new content (web pages) regularly, maybe once a month if you can't do it sooner.
Allow and encourage other related sites to link to your web pages.

Of course this list is not complete but it's a good start nevertheless

demtro · #3 22-Sep-2005, 18:33

Thank you for the quick response, can you give me some examples of what you are talking about, I was able to add something to the title, and kept it between 50-80 characters including spaces which was a recomendation I recieved before. as for the other items headers etc I am not sure I udnerstnad what you are talking about. I also do not know what HTML (Markup) is

JdS · #4 22-Sep-2005, 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by demtro

I was able to add something to the title, and kept it between 50-80 characters including spaces

Try not to get too specific when you are just starting out... What I mean is that you don't need to start counting characters (to decide what you should put in your title tag) now. Just put what comes naturally, a sentence or 2 will normally do just fine.

HTML is HyperText Markup Language.

It's what you see when you are at a web page and

click on View > Page Source on Mozilla's FireFox Menu (or CTRL+U).
click on View > Source on Microsoft's Internet Explorer Menu.

An example of invalid HTML (from your existing page):

HTML Code:


<p align="center">

                  <a href="surnames.htm">

                  <img border="0" src="images/surnames2.jpg" width="82" height="38"></a>
                  <a href="links.htm">

                  <img border="0" src="images/links2.jpg" width="82" height="38"></a>
                  <a href="Contact%20Us.htm">

                  <img border="0" src="images/contactus2.jpg" width="82" height="38"></a>
                  <a href="About%20Us.htm">

                  <img border="0" src="images/aboutus2.jpg" width="82" height="38"></a> </td>

Note that you have an open paragraph i.e. <p>, but you did not close it. Most browsers render the page correctly anyway and I am sure it does NOT result in your content being ignored by the search engines but it can surely confuse them.

Let's say your targeted keyword is family, here is an example web page basically optimised for the word.

HTML Code:


<html>
<head>
<!-- keyword in Title -->
<title>The Family Site - Homepage</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- in the Heading Level 1 -->
<h1>Kevin King's Family Site</h1>
<p>Introduce what your <b>family</b> web site is all about including the keyword somewhere in this paragraph.</p>
<!-- in the Heading Level 2 -->
<h2>Family: Smiths</h2>
<p>Something about the Smith Family</p>
<!-- in the Heading Level 2 -->
<h2>Family: Jones</h2>
<p>Something about the Jones Family</p>

<!-- etc... -->
</html>

demtro · #5 22-Sep-2005, 22:05

Thank you for those examples that is very helpfull as was the original response. I am going to work on adding some of these tips. Is there any benefit to using Metatags and what are they? ALso the reason I was leaving the title tag short was becasue i was concearned about being blacklisted by search engines. Anyway thanks for the info and pleasee keep the help coming.

JdS · #6 22-Sep-2005, 22:37

Sure, meta tags can be useful, especially

HTML Code:


<meta name="description" content="Describe your web page here." />

Both, Yahoo and Google sometimes use it to describe your web page in their search result pages. It doesn't necessarily mean it figures at all in their ranking or algorithm.

Don't over-analyse every Search Engine Optimisation tip you find... If you do, you'll never get anything done! When they start discussing percentages and character counts and stuff like "keyword density" and such, it's wiser for you to just ignore details like that and allow yourself to do things naturally (but correctly).

It will take a lot of hidden text, heavy cloaking and other extreme abuse for search engines to black list a site. Unless you're trying to optimise for your debt-consolidation-credit-card-mortgage-viagra-replica-rolex type web site, I wouldn't worry about tripping any warning flags anywhere.

Having said that, Yahoo is quite trigger-happy and may blacklist a web site for minor infringements. Another reason why it is destined to fail in the long term -- but we're not going to go there today

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Need Help Getting website to show up in Search Engines

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