Best SEO Tool For Google - Patience

[logodesign77]

Patience is a virtue...or so they say. It is often hard to explain to a client who does not have a good understanding of how the Internet works, why they shouldn't expect overnight results on google search engine. I have a client who has a site that is 7 months old. It has been indexed by google and for the last two months it has been crawled to the tune of 20+ meg. The site is about 100 pages. Anyway, he sees that he is number one on MSN for his key search term but not even on the radar on google.

I have learned that the number one tool in any Google SEO program is patience. And I tell my clients that want their sites to show up on Google to be patient and not to expect anything for quite a while. Then comes the inevitable question from the client..... "If I am top on MSN then why not Google, don't they all work the same?" That is when I give them the url to this forum and say read away.

I make sure before I accept any money or start any work that they are fully prepared to be patient and understand that in our instant gratification world, things take a long time on Google.

[Deliguy]

That is definitely good advice. I don't do SEO for hire, but I'd imagine a top position in Google would be a hard sell. You'd need a good system of explaining to clients what the benefits of them keeping you hired long term would be.
When I look at my own sites I like to think a good position in MSN means high potential for a good position in Yahoo. A good position in Yahoo means a high potential for a good position in Google. In that order.

[xsurveys]

I feel your pain. I've had that same problem with many of my customers. However - it is not impossible to get onto google within 48 hours. I inserted my site auctiongen.com about 3 days ago - and it's already appearing on page 2 results for my keywords on google.com and page 1 for my keywords for google.co.uk. I haven't bothered to check the other googles.

My little advice about SEO

Make sure your meta tags are thorough. Make sure the words and phrases in your title and description and keywords also appear at least twice within your page. I also target relevant sites for reciprocal links. I make sure my pages don't have over 50 links out also. Once I adopted that policy I saw a rise in my positions for my other site.

These are just a few things that have worked for me - I'm no SEO guru at all - but Ive been able to dominate search results for my keywords.

You are always right to tell a customer not to expect overnight results. Getting to the top of google takes time and a lot of money if you don't want to wait a while :)

[James Bull]

This article, about SEO generally, has some good advice for clients about realistic expectations:
http://www.highrankings.com/issue152.htm#seo

[DrTandem1]

Yes, patience is important with Google. However, Google no longer has any motivation to position a site properly within its SERPs. Especially, new sites.

As for the new site mentioned, I see it is indexed in Google, but I can not find it in the SERPs for any of the key terms I tried. Maybe I'm in the wrong data center.

[logodesign77]

Hi.......the site in question is not the one in my signature line. It is a hot sauce and gourmet sauce site. The domian is www.rojosgourmet.com Maybe some of you can take a look and offer some input. I think it is just a matter of waiting and continuing to add more content to the site. I have other sites at or near the top of google for particular search terms and in each case it took quite a while to get there.

Thanks for your comments so far.....they are much appreciated.

[espectations]

Just some advice from my side:

• G is not the only search engine - make sure clients understand that.
  
  If your client is in so much of a hurry he could always use G's PPC (normally clients do not want to pay so explain diplomatically that "you get what you pay for").
  
  Measure his site response through enquiries and sales that result from the site. This may include a unique telephone number where all web site visitors phone in to - it is important to measure dial-in enquiries as well. In some countries like South Africa, businesses are notorious for not responding to e-mail. So people prefer to phone and speak to someone.
  
  Make sure that you do not just position in G global but also in regional search engines, vertical directories etc. If he sees he has local exposure he might be more pleased.

Last but not least - one recent customer of mine did his first tender 1 month after we went live with the site. The client distributes generators in Southern Africa.

As you know tenders take some time but they were awarded the tender which was for 200 units.

I can assure you that this client makes so much money out of it that my fees are prepaid for more than a year - it also covered his web development.

He is not the only one - some of my other clients told me they sell one unit and my fees are covered for a year.

There is no point in being number 1 in any search engine if you do not get enquiries and the customer actually turn that enquiry into a sale.

Clearly define to your clients how you will be measuring their web site performance. Statistics, response rate and conversion to sales is much more important to me personally than SERPS.

[Jabber_uk]

I get customers who I have built websites for saying they have been contacted by such and such a marketing company who promise to get their website to the number one position or on to the first page. Some sort of promise like that anyway.

I then ask them to go away and type in the company name of the company that is making these promises and to let me know what position that company's own website is (remember that they are typing in the company name as a search term).

They usually come back with "I couldn't find them" or "I found them on the third page".

So I gently point out that if this company cannot get their own website on to the first page for their company name, then how do you expect them to get your site onto the first page for your search terms?

They usually start to understand a little more then that things are not easy when it comes to search engine results.

[Artyom]

My strong believe is any SEO activity has to begin with understanding your clients or prospects needs. Why does your client need top positioning at Google if he sells software scripts and you know about sites like hotscripts.com (vertical search engine) where he'll get his sales much-much faster then with organic SEO. I'm not telling that this particular client won't need SEO at all, no. I'm telling that to get sells, leads - anything he defines as a target you don't have to concetrate on organic SEO as a major thing. He WILL NEED SEO to get good word of mouth, good reputation. When people will start googling in search of any information about this client they fill find positive marks for his product at different directories, forums...etc (this is part of your job to place info about this product/service so people may evalutate it and give him positive marks) which have high ranking at GG already (you don't have to grab they from nowhere to top 10, they are already there)

I believe SEO has to be treated wider, if you want to sell SEO to your clients and decrease amount of explanation work 'why do I have to wait 6-8 month till I get high positing at GG?' You need to sell a complex solution, you need to sell a solution for getting quality traffic, traffic which leads to sells.

[dburdon]

Its possible to get a high Google ranking for a new site. Typically in uncompetitive categories. But the generally expressed sentiment is correct. In relative terms the Google algorithm favours older domains and older links compared to Yahoo and especially MSN.

[ebugs]

Based on the last 10 sites I have started 8 out of 10 were in the top 10 for decent keywords within 2 weeks. Out of those 8, every single one dropped out of sight after 7-10 days and did not come back into view until 10-14 months later and I'm not talking about black hat seo with any of these.

MSN might be a little bit quicker than Yahoo but getting in the Big Y is still the best bet for most sites and will deliver good traffic until G gets off their a**. I don't even worry about getting high serps anymore with G....If it comes great,. if it doesn't, I just thank Yahoo and keep going

[MtraX]

ebugs, that's the general norm for new sites. First 1-2 weeks you'll show up and then drop out again depending on the competitiveness of your genre. Just keep on improving your sites until one day wham you're in action and Google suddenly loves you...

[dharrison]

Originally Posted by Jabber_uk

I get customers who I have built websites for saying they have been contacted by such and such a marketing company who promise to get their website to the number one position or on to the first page. Some sort of promise like that anyway.

I then ask them to go away and type in the company name of the company that is making these promises and to let me know what position that company's own website is (remember that they are typing in the company name as a search term).

They usually come back with "I couldn't find them" or "I found them on the third page".

So I gently point out that if this company cannot get their own website on to the first page for their company name, then how do you expect them to get your site onto the first page for your search terms?

They usually start to understand a little more then that things are not easy when it comes to search engine results.

One of my customers, who has no patience, got suckered in by one of these "cowboys" when I was on maternity leave. I'm glad he waited to tell me after the baby was born and not prior!

Since then I have tried to reason with him and tried everything you suggested, but he says it is £XX per month that hes paying and its his site. Anyway his second cousin (? or something like that) is running his site now for free, so I am better off out of that one.

I do agree though, big G is all about patience, its just about proper pros like us (if I may be so bold) educating the masses into having the patience to wait until Google have done whatever their little secret formula is and then see the results and reap the rewards.

Boldness again, but Google are number 1 for a reason, right?

[William321]

MtraX, I have the same experience. Sites indexed and even showing up in the 1st page of Google. After some weeks they're gone. Even some sites linking to this site are not shown when you type the link:URL although they did at first.

I think it can only mean they have editors checking new content and manually deleting it. Would that be a possibilty?

[pemburung]

Google isn't #1 for a reason, but several. Unfortunately, none of them seems, any more, to be the best SE. History, past performance, brand familiarity, buzz, lazy or unknowing searchers are a few terms that come to mind, but not best.

I have a site that ranks #1 for a three word term. It ranks 29 for a term comprising just the second two of those words, if I drop the first (this 2-word term is defintitely a more comptetitive term). If I put the first word at the end of the term, instead of at the start, it doesn't rank at all. Both MSN and Yahoo "get it" when I do the swap.

[brian.mark]

We've had no trouble with Google at all lately. We're seeing more and more traffic from them, even for a couple of new sites I've done. I followed the advice bhartzer, daven, and webguerilla gave. I simply set it up on a subdomain of an existing site and then did a 301 to the new domain.

Even our blogs, which are just over a month old, are attracting 70% of our visitors from Google. I'm not sure what it is that we're doing right for sure, but I personally like Google and the traffic they send quite a bit.

Brian.

[dharrison]

Originally Posted by pemburung

Google isn't #1 for a reason, but several. Unfortunately, none of them seems, any more, to be the best SE. History, past performance, brand familiarity, buzz, lazy or unknowing searchers are a few terms that come to mind, but not best.

I have a site that ranks #1 for a three word term. It ranks 29 for a term comprising just the second two of those words, if I drop the first (this 2-word term is defintitely a more comptetitive term). If I put the first word at the end of the term, instead of at the start, it doesn't rank at all. Both MSN and Yahoo "get it" when I do the swap.

I knew that I would've caused a bit of a stir with that Google comment ;)

I agree Brian. Google seems to be working pretty well for me just recently. They seem to love blogs that are updated on a regular basis.

[IIxxVADERxxII]

Can you say "sandbox"?

[brian.mark]

Originally Posted by IIxxVADERxxII

Can you say "sandbox"?

Let me try... saaaandbox. ;-)

I'm guessing you're referring to the "Patience" part?

Brian.

[virtualtraveller]

I couldn't agree more. Since The Florida update in mid 2004, new sites in competitive keyword realms are finding it much more difficult to take their rightful place in the SERPs. No doubt about it Google now penalises new sites, not only with the so called 'sandbox' probation but by diminishing the value of its new links and even negatively scoring for sites that attain too many links too quickly.

The web is so full now that Google doesn't really need to squeeze any new sites onto the upper rankings, the user will still most likely find what they are looking for from existing sites and will be none the wiser. No doubt many of the new sites have to resort to adsense to get by, which is handy for the 'do no evil' giants.

I have a site about a tourist town which is clearly one of the few among its competitors that has any decent SEO behind it. It is 15 months old and ranks #3 in MSN and #5 in Yahoo for its main keyword (name of town) yet bounces between 14 and 24 in Google, go figure! I've given up fretting about Google, I do OK off the other two and it's a sure sign that when Google eventually welcomes my site to the 'adult club' it too will be near the top. By then though, the public might have wizened up and switched their loyalty more in equal favour of the other SEs.

[jackson992]

Heck my google traffic has sucked since October. Now that goes way beyond patience.

[rgi625]

I have had my site www.arcanabaskets.com up and running for a little over 2 years. I have yet to show on any search engines for my keywords: gifts,gift baskets and corporate gifts. I read what I can find on optimization. What I do know about website I have taught myself (scary but true). I also know that I am in a very competive market, second to the adult market. I would greatly appreciate any feed back on the site that anyone has to help me get listed.

[freehits]

Originally Posted by Jabber_uk

They usually come back with "I couldn't find them" or "I found them on the third page".

I thought I had read on Aaron wall's site, i could be wriong where it was. That a company trying to rank their own site doesnt have enough costumers to remain busy or is perhaps more concerned with what is important, their customers sites. So better off asking where their customers are in the search.

Now the fact that they are contacting you cold like that seems the issue to me. I would think someone with suchg success wouldnt need to cold call, and the client referrals would keep them busy.

[freehits]

Originally Posted by rgi625

I have had my site www.arcanabaskets.com up and running for a little over 2 years. I have yet to show on any search engines for my keywords: gifts,gift baskets and corporate gifts. I read what I can find on optimization. What I do know about website I have taught myself (scary but true). I also know that I am in a very competive market, second to the adult market. I would greatly appreciate any feed back on the site that anyone has to help me get listed.

Well, when you work with what is a template or a pre-maintained site like that know that you first are competing with everyone else with the same coded site.

So my 02 is that you wont be able to diferentiate yourself without a unique site worth being preferred over the others.

More importantly,
Clean up your mates a little, dont need the word gift 25 times in the keyword meta, add a revisit and robot tag perhaps.
Not important reallt, but correct is best.

More importantly, you have no heading tags. No H1 and no H2? seems like suicide for your yahoo ranking.

Now content in the code, you have just the one paragraph, and its located 60% down in the code below tones of tables. The first actual text is about 3 pages down.

If you can ad a description substring of like 50 characters below each item photo, that would beef the copy up with quality and relevent text.
EX
"this basket is designed with christmas in mind you can buyt this....more"

If you could remove the HEAVY table design from most areas, you could reduce the page size by 75%. The <TD> tag outnumbers actual words in the page.

You may want to 'rel=nofollow' in you banners as they look like afilate links anyway.

Just my opinions, but good advice at least for yahoo and msn. Perhaps CTUBUK can run a free report for you, as he generally offers to.

Mike

[jackson992]

You're not trying to say format of a table influences rankings are you? Because this brings back to mind the myth that pages rank better if they validate.

[freehits]

No actually im saying the html is 95% useless to google, since it has table after table and the has the only actual text located more than half way down the extremely large file sizes.

If you go back and research the validate arguments you will find that I the primary contributor stating that validation is a complete myth.

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...light=validate

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...r=asc&start=25

[jackson992]

Thx I wanted to see your opinion on the tables and validation issue. I use a ton of tables and hope that's not a problem on my http://jacksretail.com site

[logodesign77]

Well it has been about 4 months since I made the initial postin on Patience. My client's website is now 10 months old. The site has been indexed by google and visits by our old friend googlebot have been fairly regular.

I am pleased to say that patience did finally pay off. Today I did a search for the primary search term for my client "Gourmet Sauce" and the site came it at number 11. Naturally I was a more than a little excited. I went to googledance.com and checked no several servers and the same search showing up in top 15 on U.S. serviers as well as co.uk and co.au and others.

How does the saying go......... "all good things come to those that wait"

Have a great SEO day............ eric

[ryanforbes]

Originally Posted by jackson992

Heck my google traffic has sucked since October. Now that goes way beyond patience.

So has mine it gets worse and worse everyday infact today I did a search and it wasnt even coming up NO1 for my company name or even my web address "www.morayfirthjobs.com" see http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

More often than not uts posts from this forum or others that come up or even other sites linking to mine. This is despite installing google sitemaps. I am fed up with google.

[dburdon]

Ryan,

don't give up on Google. Your site is still relatively new.

There are things you can do to change your design and get the more relevant content to be more prominent. Take a look at your Google cache:

http://www.morayfirthjobs.com/&hl=en&lr=&strip=1]Google cache[/url]

Firstly, there's an awful lot of non-relevant material on the home page. Secondly, your keywords meta tag shows a whole series of keyword terms that don't appear on the page. A little bit of tweaking, plus a steady link building campaign could solve your problems.

[airpr23]

Google is kind of falling off.

[ryanforbes]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Ryan,


Firstly, there's an awful lot of non-relevant material on the home page. Secondly, your keywords meta tag shows a whole series of keyword terms that don't appear on the page. A little bit of tweaking, plus a steady link building campaign could solve your problems.

thanks for the advice, I think i was just having a hate google day when i wrote that post your right I just need to be patient and ride out the storm. Which material were you thinking wasnt relevant?