[RESOLVED] About SE

Rodney_H_

Hi, all:

Happy Holidays to you.

I have a few questions:

"Do you consider Search Engine page ranking when designing/building a site? If so, how? Have you ever told a client to re-write content to get better SE results? What do you do to ensure the best possible search engine ranking as possible??"

Thanks.

Elizabeth

Yes I do consider rankings when building a site, as that is usually some measure of success, at least as far as the client is concerned. I think it goes without saying that they expect to be listed near the top for their particular topic. I'm no SEO expert by any means but this is what I tell my e-commerce class:
- include as much quality content on the site as possible. The more you have, the better your chances are at being listed higher, as there is more to go on. Plus, a quality content site will do better than an "empty" site. So in an e-commerce setting, this can equate to not only product descriptions but other information as well... for example, if you're selling party goods then you could put articles on your site about party planning, or ideas for party games and such. This will give you a greater chance of being seen.
- Don't try and "fool" the search engines by repeating words over and over again. IIRC Google will actually penalize you for doing this
- Use appropriate titles and meta tags
- Have a good balance between images and text- not enough text doesn't give the spiders anything to grab, too much text is boring for the reader
- Continually check results and tweak if you need to
- Save your money and don't pay someone to "submit your site" to hundreds of search engines. That's bs- the only ones you need to worry about are Google and Yahoo, and maybe MSN and AOL. It's not worth your time to worry about the other 5 people using AskJeeves. That's my opinion of course. The exception to this would be if there is an industry specific search engine (such as globalspec.com targeted for engineering) then you might take the time to make sure you're listed. Otherwise who cares?
- When all else fails, google adwords really do work... at least that's been our experience

There are tons of articles on improving search engine ranking but as far as I know, nobody has found the magic bullet to guarantee a number one spot.

In fact, we struggle with this ourselves with our e-commerce site giftsforengineers.com. We go back and forth in ranking between our site and another site (NIEE's article on giving gifts TO engineers and the ethics behind that) being number one... it's good that google discards useless words, but "gifts FOR engineers" and "gifts TO engineers" are completely different 🙂 Of course you can get around that by typing the phrase in quotes but most people aren't that search engine savvy, believe it or not.

ok, I think I'm done ranting- sorry about that 🙂

hth!

Rodney_H_

Elizabeth, much thanks for all that useful information. I appreciate your help!

Jason_Batten

Merry Christmas! (if anyone is offended PM me :p)

A lot of people want SEO because they think they need it. You have a DUTY to your client who is PAYING you for services. Services which he or she thinks will benefit their business.

SEO does not work for a lot of people. It won't benefit "mom & pop" or little Billy and his two lemonade stalls on Burk street and Carter road.

Web-business-developer ethics are getting to me atm, so forgive my firmness on this issue but I am disgusted to say the least. If your client asks "do I need SEO" what are you going to say? - The same answer if someone asks you "Do I need a web site for my business"... no the answer isn't yes, it is 'IT DEPENDS'.

Sorry to turn this thread into perhaps a deeper issue.

That said, can't believe I'm doing this, Note: if any of you enter the web site I will never speak to you again. I'm redesigning dammit!!! :o using CSS-layouts, I swear!!! Here we go:

Yahoo: "freelance web services australian perth" No. 1 😃
Also as "perth australian freelance web services"
Google: "freelance web services australian perth" No. 1 😃
Also as "perth australian freelance web services"

Now. My site is crap. Why is it number one? cos I did what everyone doesn't 😉

Off-topic: Why professional? pros have ethics and strive for perfection. That said, I don't like the word and will be removing it.

Rodney_H_

Jason, what is your web site address? What are the things that you do to get that kind of ranking? AND, who told you about the site I am doing for Little Billy's lemonade stands??

DOH he says, kicking himself. You just told us how to find you via google. Took me a minute...

bubblenut

Jason Batten wrote:
Now. My site is crap. Why is it number one? cos I did what everyone doesn't 😉

I don't get it, what did you do?

_theworks

Hey rodney,
ALA has VERY good article on SEO . also read Webmaster Guidelines

so accessibility and semantic's RULEZ 😃

Rodney_H_

thanks, _theworks.

Has anyone ever told a client to re-write their content to get a better density of keywords in the page? My client wants to be found by two or three combinations of keywords, but they are not really used at all on the site.

Elizabeth

Yes- I would suggest he at least includes the phrase he's looking for to be found somewhere in the site... that would be like us hoping someone would find us by typing in "how to skydive"- if it's not anywhere in the site, it most likely won't come up.

_theworks

Ok i dono if this is really good practice. i havnt done it before so i dono if it'd work, but IF you realy wanted some phases to be picked up by the spiders but cant find a way to weave them into your text just make a <span> like keywords or somthing and have it where ever you want in your html probably at the top of your body would be nice, then just use CSS to make the span 'invisible' to humans but readable to spiders 😉 like this

.keywords { display:none;}

Rodney_H_

Thanks. Wow. I got my SE education today between you and what I have read online. WOW. I had no idea there was so much to it. The cool part is that it all makes sense.

Now, if Jason will just share his tips, too...

Rodney_H_

_theworks wrote:
Ok i dono if this is really good practice. i havnt done it before so i dono if it'd work, but IF you realy wanted some phases to be picked up by the spiders but cant find a way to weave them into your text just make a <span> like keywords or somthing and have it where ever you want in your html probably at the top of your body would be nice, then just use CSS to make the span 'invisible' to humans but readable to spiders 😉 like this
.keywords { display:none;}

From what I just read, don't do that. It will actually black list you with the search engines... Listing keywords, hiding keywords, and blending keywords (same color as background) are all considered sneaky and can hurt your page ranking. Just read it five minutes ago...

_theworks

hehe glad i havnt tried it then 😉

just make them put the phrases they want in the content then..

Jason_Batten

Rodney is right about the backlash. It is bad ethics.

Any way, there is no secret Rodney. I've just read a lot of articles from a lot of places and done what I was told to do.

Recently I found: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/cat_search_engine_optimization.html
Sitepoint is a great resource: www.sitepoint.com
and Google it's self like _theworks stated above is also good.

Title, Description, Content 🙂 - Also note I have no one linking to my web site yet.

_theworks

Yeh it is bad practice.
but i didnt know that spiders could read your CSS i thort they only read your html?

EDIT: ok after reading this discussion i've found google can and does read your CSS files. (though you could disable the spiders acess to your CSS files with robots.txt) however the best way is the honest way you dont wana get blacklisted 😃

Rodney_H_

I thought I would post a link here in the event that anyone else is interested:

1) http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm (search engine optimization tips)
2) http://www.searchengineforums.com/ (search engine forums)

Thanks for everyone's help.

🙂