High Rankings.. In Plain English?

[digitalsam]

I am a graphic designer who knows graphics and can "design" a good looking website. However, this SEO and ranking stuff has me stumped. I am typically short on cash (especially the thousands of dollars most SEO companies ask for) Can someone explain to me in plain English (minus the acronyms) how do I go about raising my ranking. Or is there a very detailed 1-2-3 step by step resource (Cd or book) that I can go to? (maybe someone could start a business around that idea?) I would like to be in the top five by Christmas for the terms, "christian gifts, bible gifts, and scripture wall plaques"

My site is www.onyourdoorposts.com

Any help would be appreciated. I am not against paying, but my budget is small and until I get some sales coming in it will stay that way.

Muchos Gracias,
Sam

[cbp]

Here is my guide to SEO101 and you don't have to pay:

Basically, hypothetically and conceptually:

ranking = importance x relevance +/- quality signals

Importance
Search engines try to rank the more important sites first:
*importance is largely based on link popularity (Google calls it PR) - the more links, especially from higher PR sites, the better --> seen as more important a site --> rank higher
* links from authority/expert sites (ie Hilltop theory) may also be an 'importance' factor
* lots of good content makes sites want to link to you as you are a good resource

Relevance
Search engines try to rank the most relevant sites higher. To be more relevant to a particular keyword(s) you need:
* Keyword(s) in the title, description, H1 tags and have the highest density on the page, but still keep low as possible and flow natural with the text
* Keywords in the anchor text of incoming links - this is currently the most important relevance factor
* links from other sites on the same theme/topic (ie TopicSensitive Page Rank theory)
* good content (so you get the relevant links)

Quality signals
Search engine try to rank the better quality sites first, so look for "signals":
eg
* do nothing that gives any hints that you are participating in link exchanges for the purposes of ranking better (ie link for the benefit of the user)
* don't link to a viagra or casino site unless you are a viagra or casino site
* duplicate content issues
* etc

CBP

[digitalsam]

Thank you for the reply. I am going to start working on your suggestions this evening. I have a few questions regarding your post.

1. If I have 25 Keywords, How do I fit them into the title, description and H1 tags
2. can you give me an example of what the HTML would look like?
3. what do you mean by "Keywords in the anchor text of incoming links"

Thanks,
Sam

[rlrouse]

Check out my signature...

[digitalsam]

Thanks, your site looks very helpful. Any idea how close the technology is to allowing us to upload info into our brains like they do in the MATRIX?
Just wondering, it would make all this a lot easier.

Thanks again.
Sam

PS: What do you think of the site? I always appreciate input. www.onyourdoorposts.com

[cbp]

1. If I have 25 Keywords, How do I fit them into the title, description and H1 tags

Forget about it - no more than one keyword or keyword phrase per page is what I aim for.

3. what do you mean by "Keywords in the anchor text of incoming links"

see the keywords as anchor text in rlrouse signature.

CBP

[Duncan Pollock]

Apart from anything else, I think you need to realize that getting high rankings for such keywords as christian gifts, bible gifts, and scripture wall plaques is going to be neither easy nor quick.

The competition is unquestionably fierce. For example, a search for christian gifts on Google turns up 4,920,000 listings, so you're going to really have your work cut out to appear among the first ten / hundred / thousand!

SEO is, I'm afraid, going to take you through a great deal more than a 1, 2, 3, step approach.

Duncan

[rlrouse]

SEO is, I'm afraid, going to take you through a great deal more than a 1, 2, 3, step approach.

Duncan, this is one of the rare occasions where I must disagree with you. SEO really is a step-by-step process, with steps 4-? being the aquisition of high-quality inbound links with good anchor text.

[coniston]

These are great tips.

Remember not to break rules. Subscribe to newletters like from webproworld to keep up to date. The search engines have a habit of changing the rules.

[DrTandem1]

Firstly, let me warn you that my opinion is in the minority here, but I back it up with facts.

Looking at your site, there is nothing hindering the modern day search engines. As evidenced by your PR, Google knows you exist, so you are already indexed. That is the first and most important hurdle.

As far as getting up in the search results, it has little to do with optimizing your site and more to do with other sites linking to your site using your keywords as anchor text for the link. This is backed up by the search for "dismal failure" that currently returns the #1 search result in Google to George Bush's bio page at the White House's website.

This was manipulated by some social engineers (democrats?) simply placing the rather unique text "dismal failure" on as few as 30 websites and using it as anchor text for the URL to George Bush's bio page.

The next example I have for you is doing a search on Google for the generic term "diamond ring" minus the quotes. High in the results, if not #1, is:
http://www.adiamondisforever.com/

They have a couple of hundred links on Google and thousands more on other sites. However, that is not what makes this result interesting. What it does is prove SEO, on Google, is pointless. Look at their source code. It's a nightmare, yet it didn't affect their placing in the search results for a very generic term.

Your code could be touched up. For instance, the title tag could be honed and you could add a meta tag for site description. These are fundamentals of web design and not mumbo-jumbo SEO voodoo.

My advice, as always is this: Focus your design on the visitor. This means having the content (text that can be indexed) they are trying to find up front, having it load quickly, having easy and consistent navigation, and having it compatible with most browsers. Again, these are fundamentals of web design and not SEO. As with anything, if you neglect the fundamentals, no amount of polishing will help.

Lastly, and arguably most important for placing high are quality relevant links. That also is not SEO, but SEO firms will argue to their death that links from external sites is optimizing your site. It isn't. Nothing done to another site optimizes (changes) anything on your site.

Do not confuse PR with search result rankings. Good Luck.

[alyak]

good suggestion by "cbp".

There is lot competitor sites , and all of they wish to became #1. As new site what you showuld to do .

1. Need make good revelace , it's your base , here you need draw good line for keywords , title -> keywords -> context . Do not make context with more then 10% of keywords inside. Language must be natural, not "And, now abot gifts ... . What people say about gifts " , etc. You need write good text and use keywords inside. Not keywords text.

2. Only 1 keyword per page.

3. Make as many pages as possible . Mean uniqe pages , with uniqe text.

4. Read about PR , you may move rank beetween your pages, and make some pages more important. For example , you can make 5 pages with keyword "christial gifts" , and move all PR to ane of these pages.

5. Link Popularity , it's multiplexor of your site. You need exchange links, register in catalogs where it possible.

6. When you done , you need wait long time before search engines start ranking you. May be few months. New good sites have worse ranking then old but bad.

One person said about his formula: "send site to all search engine and forget about engines , then write every day 1 article for 6 months, then send again to all search engines , then keep writing every day 1 article and after 1 year you will get 2000-3000 hist per day ", and this is near true.

7. Try to use google adwords , but not pay much for these ads , some crazy people pay up to $5/click and more, don't make they mistake. I pay maximum $0.15. It can get traffic fast and with low budget.

PS. sorry for my english , it's not native my language.

[tbchad]

I haven't seen anybody yet mention the importance of using the right keywords--keywords that your intended audience uses to find your products. This is a totally different issue than the number of competing web pages.

Using Wordtracker, I found that two of your terms aren't used by a lot of people. Here are the Wordtracker estimated searches per day for your keywords, and words used on your site, and some other keywords.

Keyword Estimated Searches/day
bible gifts 5
scripture wall plaques 0
christian gifts 474
christian bible gifts 0
scripture bible verses 65
scripture verses 39
sripture verse cards 13
bible verses 1762
bible verse 247
doorposts 29
doorpost 9
wall plaques 84
wall plaque 27
inspirational wall plaques 19

From this, I'd recommend going for "inspirational wall plaques," "bible verses," "scripture bible verses," and "Christian gifts."

Also, I disagree with emphasizing only one keyword per page. You can easily target three keywords per page, or just write your copy so all of your keywords are used throughout your site.

For example:
"inspirational wall plaques with scripture bible verses for your doorposts and walls"

Terry Brainerd Chadwick
Web Performance Specialist

[DrTandem1]

thchd-

I think I alluded to that in my comments about anchor text for external links from other sites. Of course, what he determines as the target keywords specifically, I did not mention.

However, what is interesting about the example for the term "diamond ring" I gave in my previous posting, is that the site that comes up as number one in the results on Google hardly uses that term at all on its Home page or its links. This suggests that certain terms such as "diamond" may be inherently linked to other terms such as "ring." In other words, simply searching for the word "diamond" minus the quotes, that same site places high in the results, as well.

Thus, simply suggesting "bible gifts" or "bible verses" will do better than just "bible" or whatever are a crapshoot at best. Google seems to have taken into account what most searchers are trying to find using related terms that the searcher may or may not have included in their search.

Personally, I have no idea what the average person searching for custom bible verses on plaques would use as a search term. I don't know, if they would just be generically searching for biblical gifts or plaques specifically. However, if you search for "custom bible verses on doorposts" minus the quotes, his site is #9. Using "custom bible doorposts" it's #7. However, using "bible doorposts" (again, all minus the quotes), I don't find it in the top 30. Using the singular ( bible doorpost)produces different results.

So, I would recommend searching Google or whatever search engine you are targeting for sites that sell similar merchandise and see which term(s) brings in the desired results. My casual observance makes me believe it is "bible doorposts" or the singular. Then I would use that as anchor text in links that point to my site from other sites.

BTW, as of this writing, it appears that many of you are checking the diamond site I mentioned, as its server response is very slow, although it is pinging.

[allfreechips]

I to am just now starting in an area where the competition is insane, the area of online gambling portals. When I started out I figured it would just happen after I got the pages all developed and submitted them to the major search engines. Just like you my budget is currently low as this started as a small hobby only because I had some free web space and enjoyed it. After It grew quicklry into somthing completely different I wanted it to be seen. Shock hit me at about this point! After weeks of reading how to optomize my site still nothing, but the more I read the more I learn, I just found this week that PR is important! I ran into an issue of 50% of my links back were http://allfreechips.com and half were http://www.allfreechips.com so I only got half the coverage, not that it was a lot. It would be nice if there was an SEO place that worked on a growing budget instead of an up front approach?

Amazing that the search engine aspect is a larger progect than the actual content of my pages!

No Deposit, Best Bonus casino and Poker room portal

[Duncan Pollock]

digitalsam: I'm not defending myself, because I have to agree with the qualification rlrouse adds to my comment about SEO being more than a 1, 2, 3 step process.
He's of course correct in saying it is a step by step process. However, my point was that you need to acquire a very thorough understanding of the various steps in order to take them effectively.
And what better way is there than, ha, ha, participating in these WebProWorld forums?!!

Duncan

[james113]

What sites link to you and How those site links to you are both very important in my opinion. My site
http://www.freewebs.com/freedirector...ness/home.html went from being listed at #128 out of 430,000 listings for the term "Midnight Madness"
to being listed at it's current listing of #9 after
getting just 5 top 10 listed, Relevant sites to place my url with "Midnight Madness" in the link
text. Only took two months!

[loudhalo]

I've seen people speak about sites that are high on Google's PR list - can someone give me an idea of what specific sites to target?

[DrTandem1]

Just curious, why don't you set up your domain, midnightmadness.info, on its own server? There are several advantages for doing this:

1)While not a dot com, midnightmadness.info is easy to remember.

2)You won't be at the mercy of the free server. If they go under or get banned, your site goes down with them.

3)Hosting for a site such as yours is very inexpensive.

4)Your e-mail address would look more professional, rather than using a hotmail address.

[dawilliams]

Greetings Sam,

I see some very good information has been posted for you already regarding your desires for improved ranking. Cheers to forum members!

To affirm some of these tips:

5 million returned results for "Christian gifts" in less than 1/2 a second is fierce competition indeed. Plain English: Be patient.

Write your copy for your prospective customers and tune the keywords accordingly.
Plain English: Ex. Your home page says, "high quality custom plaques with your favorite verses." What if it read something like, "...plaques make great Christian gifts using your favorite scriptures and bible verses." (or something along those lines - the point is to build keyword density).

Headings place emphasis on keywords for your readers and may lend to SE relevancy.

Rethink your meta tags and add relevant descriptions and titles for each page on the site.
Plain English: Your home page title reads, "On Your Doorposts - Custom Inspirational Christian Bible Gifts" What if it read, "...Custom Christian Gifts..." Further, all your page titles are identical - I would recommend you have unique titles and descriptions for each page. (you could help yourself using "description" tags for each page.)

Build relationships for reputable backlinks to your site with clear anchor text. Plain English: Find another Christian site with decent traffic and ask if they would link to your products using the term "Christian gifts" for the anchor text.

Check to see who is linking to you. Plain English: Go to Google and type "link:www.onyourdoorposts.com" as your search string. (minus the quote marks)

Back to basics: Things to do to improve the look and perception of your existing site.
Increase your content by better displaying your products with better images (show me a clear example of your plaque) and descriptive copy.

Eliminate spelling errors on the site. There are three on your home page (1st incident of "their", "impromptu", and "occasions") Spelling errors diminish the professional perception of your organization.

Plain English: These suggestions are intended to assist you with your stated needs and I hope they are a blessing to you and your endeavors.

[steven1976]

I hear you talk about you dont want to spend thousands of dollars on SEO and obviously you are interested in learning SEO but this will take time and by the time you learn it, it will probably change.

Im from the UK but live in Asia and what I have found that there are some gems in Asia for doing this type of job and including regular updates rather than just a one off job. Ill let you do your own research but countries like India have excellent people with great english knowledge, which is probably why companies like British Telecom, Morgan Stanley are moving a lot of their business there so Im sure you can find at a fraction of the cost in Asia. Originally my site cost 200US in a different country and I have probably over 1000 pcs of jewelry on my site and I rank well for various terms that I want to do well on.

steve

[DrTandem1]

Steven1976, What you are promoting is outsourcing. This is a very hot topic in the U.S. Businesses do it not because of the quality of the work, but because of the low labor costs.

In fact Kerry has attacked Bush for outsourcing, although Bush hasn't outsourced anything and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz, has a company of her late husband's surname that does a tremendous amount of outsourcing. That's one of the reasons Kerry is called Mr. Flip-Flop.

Yes, I receive spam every day from those in third world countries wanting to sell me web design or trade links with one of my clients. To be honest, the requests are very poorly done and the template sites they produce are also low quality.

I think most people in the U.S. would feel more comfortable dealing with someone in the Western Hemisphere. The reasons include time zones, phone calls, language barriers and the turmoil in which these other nations find themselves.

Because of those reasons, many companies have instituted accent reduction classes for their employees, have them adopt aliases such as "Fred" and "John" and have them work the night shift to accomodate the working hours of the West.

You say "outsource" in America and it has a very negative connotation. American clients do not want to be known as outsourcers. It's bad for business, especially for small business.

[urknighterrent]

I hear you say? What the heck is that?

SEO isn't that difficult, and there's plenty of folks out there keeping track of changes so you should be able to subscribe to webpronews and keep up.

Rankings in google are LINKS LINKS LINKS. They don't give a rats bottom about content. The "miserable failure" gag exploited this SERIOUS weakness in googles crawler.

For the others content starts to matter. Like the boys told you, there's no 123, but there is software that can help you. I use "web position gold", but I think that's overkill for you. Give the free version of web CEO a try...

http://www.websiteceo.com/download.htm

There's some serious limitations to the software, but if you're just doing one site it should be fine.

MAJOR words of warning...

This is not a gospel!!! Use this tool to help learn the rules, but the primary function of your website must be to appeal to your cutomers, not your crawlers!!!

After you've run a few pages through it, put it down and never look at it again (at least until the crawlers change rules on you). Once you know the rules you can get back to using your text creatively. You'll produce a better web site from the heart than you will from some piece of software.

DON'T use "automatic pages". It'll take you just as long as writing the page yourself and while you may get slightly better rankings you won't sell *&^%!!!

[incrediblehelp]

Besides the obviously great suggestions above, I dont think you are going to quickly aquire many inbound links from other sites unless you give them more reason to. Right now your website is only 7 pages! I would think about adding "bible" related and original content to the site to help attract more rankings and more friendly links.

[urknighterrent]

BTW: I know what happens to fruitcake. It get's mailed from person to person year after year until it reaches me.

Mmmmmmm. Fruitcake.

[Mel]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

Steven1976, What you are promoting is outsourcing....

It's bad for business, especially for small business.

If that is in fact true why then are so many very savvy US businesses doing it?

IMO the quality of work is not dependant on the country it is done in but the skills of the people who do it. You can find great bargains in many countries where labor costs are lower, but where the graphics skills may actually be better. I will concede that there are often language problems, but this is not a major hurdle.

When it comes to simple but repetitive jobs such as sourcing links, would you prefer to pay $25 per link achieved or $3?

[urknighterrent]

I want my 2 cents in on outsourcing:

Mel is right. Using 14 year old slave labor without all those pesky labor and environmental laws is good business. Always has been. That's how I got a winter coat for less than 50 bucks!

Ain't it grand that ethics doesn't matter past search engine optimization!

:-O

[SEO-novice]

Hi

I appologise for such an approach, yet anyone knows if "right click disable" does any damage to your site ranking or has any negative influence on it. My web business has been online for several months now and still there is no rank even thou i am trying to follow all the rules that search engines put into operation>

Thank you!

[flood6]

I'm going to jump in here and ask that we try to get back to the original issues brought up in this topic.

I, for one, think that the issue of outsourcing is a topic that is due some good discussion in this community and would invite any interested member to start a thread in the appropriate forum and discuss it there.

I can see this issue derailing this topic, and I wanted to divert this before it happened.

Thanks.

[urknighterrent]

Sorry flood. Does that mean no more fruitcake?

:(

Novice, a good start might be to give us a link to your site. We might be able to cough up some usefull advice, but we need to see the site first.