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Old 10-24-2003, 08:18 PM
Conficio Conficio is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Mass, U.S.A.
Posts: 434
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Default lets be nasty

Hi there,
a lot good point already said about the poor performance of this web-site in search engines. The huge amount of comments and scripts in the source, and minimal content certainly contributes to it.

But the flash intro, should not be an issue for google or other search engines if done right. The key is to have a link to another page, that is visible in html (not embeded in flash). Anyway, as of today it does not look like a flash only intro anymore. But let me tell you, visitors hate those useless flash intro pages (especially if "home" returns to them). So scrap it for that reason!

Also, have links exchanged deep, i.e. that go to pages beyond the front page to subject specific pages.

In general, search engines do spider (crawl) the site and not only the front page. So if they find a way in (through side streets, to use the metaphor used before), it should not hurt too much. It might be that not the front page comes up, rather topic specific pages directly (under your topic keyword, not necessarily your company or site name), but that is rather a plus for your visitors. For example someone searching for yoga will land on the yoga page of your site, rather than the home page. You have certainly an easier time to capture his interest here and may be turn her into a customer.

For all those that now say - No Way. I maintain a site that uses the sin of all sins, cloaking and has no problems to be spidered by google or others. Case in proof www.weltladen-lienz.com - sorry it's in german. The caveat is that google does not list www.weltladen-lienz.com but rather the real URL. Also bookmarks are usually saved only for the home page if someone did come in through the cloaked passage. But I don't care that much in this case. It is not a copmmerce site, rather a not for profit business and info site.

One easy improvement should be, to pull the scripts into an extra file and use a <link...> to import it. Should also make the pages faster to load. The size of the page plus the images might be an issue in general. Have you tried to watch the site through a modem connection? Try "sloppy" http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/ to test that out.

One nasty question: "Why do you bother about a key word "iplushealth"? Do you think people look for this name? Is this a well known brand like "Coca Cola"? I don't think so! But you want people to find you if they look for "hair loss", "hair loss and diet", "diet planner", .... That is the area you want to concentrate on. Tip: Ask your customers, what brought them to you. Try to record their answers. The language they use to talk about their needs is what they type into a search engine. Try to do a follow up with such questions, to every support request you get! Try to spend as much time as you can entertaining real/personal conversations, about the issues, that your customers try to solve. Ask questions, show empathy and interest. Try not to sell! If you do this, it will earn you an excellent reputation with your customers and helps you to learn how to market your products/services.

Good luck

K<o>
P.S.: Try to make more clear that your business is in Singapor. Not everyone is expecting that for an english *.com site. I'd put the address in the header or on the left site under the menu. Most english speaking people don't live there and international shipping might come too expensive, so they could feel mislead. Also, In your contact inernationalize the phone numbers.
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