Newbie - Website Submission etc. - confused!!

[fortune68]

Hi All,

I really am a Newbie - I have finished creating my first website ( Beach Theme Home Decor ) through a site builder program (unfortunately I got sucked in, I am sure there is a way of creating websites WITHOUT spending a few thousand dollars!!!), and now my site looks (finally) good after I cleaned up my HTML (what a learning curve!), and I am now reading through this forum trying to find more tips, explanations and helpful hints for SEO, Website Submission etc, and guess what:

A lot of it still just sounds like Chinese to me!!! I am soooo frustrated, the more I read the more questions I have, and now I don't know where to start any more! Many of the posts and replies which I had a look at to gain some insight are of little or no use to me because I simply don't understand what they are talking about with all the technical talk. Sorry!

I think the most important questions I have right this moment are:

1) How do I submit my site to the search engines (mainly Google, Yahoo, MSN) - I have posted that question before, and it seems I don't have to really do anything, just posting the sites link on this forum will make the search engines pick it up eventually. But will they pick up my whole site? How long will it take?

Can I use a free service? Or should I use a paid service? Or really just do nothing? Do I have to submit every single page of my site separately, or is it enough to just submit the main URL? Do I submit pages like "about Us" and "Site Map" as well? And do I have to have Meta Tags and a Meta Description for these, too?

Each of my web pages is centered around a certain keyword, and the Meta Tags and Meta Description are optimized for the Search Engines. So I want my Page "Tropical Home Decor" to rank high when somebody enters the search term "tropical home decor", or my page "Seashell Home Decor Accents" to rank high when somebody enters that search term.

2) Link Exchange: I want to gain some Page Rank (who doesn't), so I have just started emailing a few other site owners within the same theme (Owners who rank on the first page to the related search term) whether they would like to exchange links. Is this a good idea? Should I do it "by hand" or can I use a service or even buy links, too?

These are the main pressing questions at the moment, and PLEASE if anybody answers (and I hope there will be somebody!!), PLEASE consider that at the other end of this message is somebody who does not understand what CSS or Style Sheet or validating your site is. Please try to answer in absolute "SEO for absolute Beginners" sentences - if that is possible.

Thanks!!!!

Petra

[bobitza]

1) You do NOT have to submit all of the pages. In fact you only need to put together a sitemap ( sitemaps.org - Home ), upload it to your website and submit it to the big three. Do NOT pay for submitting! It is advisable to sign up for webmaster tools for all of the big 3 engines. Within those tools you'll find the option to submit a sitemap. Don't worry, it won't bite. Just sign up for a webmaster tools account and you'll have there an option to add a website and after that an option to add a sitemap for that website (basically you provide the link where the sitemap is located)

2) For Link Exchange, I would do it by hand and make sure I choose only relevant websites.

[wige]

1) Every search engine has a free search submission form, however, the preferred method is to get links from sites that are already indexed and frequently crawled. The search engines want to know that your site is important enough to be linked to by sites that they already know about. This will also help your site get a boost in rankings (kind of a freshness bonus if any exists) for the first few weeks.

How quickly the search engines crawl through your site depends in many cases on how important your site is determined to be, especially in the beginning. The search engines have to prioritize the sites they crawl and how they allocate their crawling resources. If your site steadily adds incoming links, for example, the search engines may visit more frequently and crawl deeper into your site.

Submitting a sitemap as mentioned above can help as well. However, this is more to ensure that the search engines have as complete a picture of your internal site structure as possible, and in most cases would not increase your crawl rate or your indexing as much as gaining relevant editorial (non-paid) links.

2) Reciprocal links (link exchanges) from on topic sites will definitely help, especially in the beginning. They will help the search engines find you and crawl more frequently, and the more related to your target keywords, the more they can help your site rank. They will also help drive some traffic to your site while you work on building your site in the results.

One thing to consider is that appropriate deep links (to internal pages rather than the home page of your site) are often used as a quality indicator by the search engines, and may improve how many of your pages are indexed, and can cause these targeted pages to rank higher for more specific searches.

As your site grows, your focus will likely shift from the link exchanges to one way links from related blogs, association web sites, and industry sites. These relevant one way inbound links are the ultimate goal, especially with Google, which seems to give one way links the most weight.

[Dubbya]

You can start getting backlinks by adding a text link in your signature here at WPW!

Always submit your site manually. With each submission, change the link text and link description to reflect your targeted keywords/keyphrases. If a lack of cash is an issue, don't worry about the paid Yahoo! listing for now. If you do your SEO properly, it won't hurt you to hang on for a while, generate some results, then pay for the Yahoo! listing.

Most directories ask for pretty standard information such as your link title, site description, keyworks, URL, email address and categories and you can save a ton of time by creating a text file with 5-10 different site descriptions and a list of targeted keywords/keyphrases.

Try to restrict the descriptions to around 150 characters (including spaces and punctuation). When you've completed the list, just copy/paste a description into the directory listing form. Remember to word each description differently to avoid duplicate content issues and also to target a more broad range of keywords/keyphrases.

Most directories won't allow deep links (links to pages within your site, other than the home page) but some do. Where possible, take advantage of them.

Don't be afraid to submit to some free directories. Any inbound links (IBL's) you can get from a nice, clean and reputable directory is worth its' weight in gold. Try to specify relevant categories!

If you're considering link exchanges, check to make sure you're exchanging links with a relevant, reputable and honest site and try to resist demands for links to their sites directly from your home page. Also, check to ensure they're not adding the "nofollow" attribute to your link. If they are, they're not passing any "link juice", so it may not be work linking to them in return.

Do a Yahoo! Search using the "link:" operator to find out where your top five competitors are listed and try get listed in the same places. As long as the costs are reasonable, don't be afraid to buy a few featured listings in paid directories that will send you qualified traffic. While these links may or may not show up in Google SERPs, paid links in busy and popular directories can be very valuable in terms of ROI and they'll keep the money coming in while you're working to gain traffic from organic search results.

As Bobitza recommended, create your google sitemap and submit it to Google, MSN and Yahoo!.

Many of us use the free GsiteCrawler sitemap tool available at:
Google Sitemap Generator for Windows :: GSiteCrawler

Quick as you can, be sure to sign up for and start using Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, Yahoo! Site Explorer and MSN Live Search Webmaster Center

You'll find them at:
Google Webmaster Central
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Live Search Webmaster Center

Try to get your site listed in local directories as well. Google Local and Yahoo! Local can drive huge amounts of traffic your way, especially with regard to brick & mortar sites.

Follow the SEO guides that our own IncredibleHelp and Webnauts have put together:

SEO, Where Do I Begin?

All you need for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Good Luck!

.02

[gridsix]

Submit the front page to a few free directories, and the engines will pick up your site in no time.

Also, you can usually create a site and host it for less that $100 using cms applications and affordable hosting.

[chrisJumbo]

Great information form all. Article submissions and blog commenting can be a great way to get deep links as well as non-search engine traffic. Once you get indexed, the search engines will probably bring you 80 - 90% of your traffic, but 10% from other sources isn't something to be ignored.

Within Articles and Blog comments you can target links to the internal pages. I would suggest taking time to do it right. Make sure your articles and blog comments actually add something.

co.mments - Login is a great way to track blog conversations.

Social Media profiles is another great way for deep links and extra traffic.

I would focus on basic SEO first. Then look at the Articles, Blogs, and social media stuff.

There is a ton of info on WPW.

My favorite article sites are:

Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web
Ezine Article Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints
Article Search Engine Directory: GoArticles.com
SearchWarp Writer's Community for Do It Yourself and Current Events Commentary

This is a good sight to find good link directories
Webmaster Resources - Boost Backlinks PageRank and Traffic

Good luck.

[Compu Solver]

I'm sure these guys will put you on the right track for submitting your website (Google has a free submission page, as do Yahoo and MSN).

I'd like to talk about your ordeal in building a website. Maybe because it's FREE and open source, not everybody's heard about Joomla! (The exclamation point is part of the name).

Joomla is a content management system that lets newbies (or even pros) build beautiful websites and maintain them quickly and easily - all without having to know the first thing about HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, etc., etc.

I've been building large and small database-driven websites since the late eighties and I'm moving all my clients over to Joomla. There are thousands of beautiful, free template designs available. Changing your Joomla website design takes only a few clicks of a mouse.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of extra add-ons you can use to extend Joomla. Most of these are free and they install with just a click or two.

It helps to use a hosting company that has strong Joomla support and one that can help you setup your .htaccess file and advise you on using a search engine friendly extension for Joomla, so you can get good rankings in teh search engines.

Having a great-looking, powerful, eCommerce website no longer requres hiring a web pro or staying up til four in the morning, pulling your hair out over code.

Check out Joomla! or Google up "joomla" and see what you get.

- Hank Castello
Business Class Web Hosting for Small Businesses

[advancedmerchant]

A great resource for a true newbie is selfpromotion.com. There is a ton (really, you can spend 2 days reading all the material) on how to submit (for free) to the majors and the minors. He has tools for submission which allow you to submit the maximum and best keywords to each SE and index. A great first timer's learning tool.

Be careful with reciprocal links, each link in also comes at the cost of a doorway away from your site to somewhere else. Like building a boat with screen doors under the waterline.

Blogs are great, but people have to come to see them. Consider a relevant newsletter, that you email to visitors who request it on your site. Keep a copy of each newsletter with an index (table of contents) on your site, and your content will grow and grow.

While there are honest companies that can help you with web marketing, there are so many sharks in the water that you will get eaten before you find fish. This is the biggest danger for someone starting out. We get several calls each week trying to get us to pay someone for what we already have... beware!

[kkharrison]

You just got a backlink from me - you have done a great job and focusing on SEO right off the bat is crucial.

And to Hank, as for Joomla, it is awesome.

I first looked at it, and Joomla is so logical: content into categories, categories into sections.

But my programmers took all the content and dumped it into 1. articles and 2. blog. Then I find out there is no knowledge of SEO, after my partner assured me all was well.

Unbelievable. I do know the feeling of being 'duped'.

So my advice is yes, use Joomla, and build for SEO at the same time.

Quick question: Hank, do you use Joomla Xplorer (cPanel) as well?

Thanks to everyone for the great input!

[webharvest]

I can vouch for Joomla! also. All of my website experience had been static sites. Joomla did have a learner curve with it but the community is GREAT for helping newbies.

You can check out my latest site, built with Joomla, here (Harvest Pointe Christian Church is a Restoration Movement Church).

I posted a link to a page that shows how you can utilize images and text. Some people think a database driven site is good for sites that are mainly text. Explore Harvest Pointe Christian Church's site and you can see it has a lot of features and is a good example of how powerful Joomla really is.

The other good news is the Joomla community is constantly improving the CMS.

I would comment on the SEO issues but from reading the earlier posts it looks like you will have enough on your hands there. All had great suggestions!!!

Thanks,
JC

[Webnauts]

1. You site is already indexed by Google: site:mybeachdecor.com/ - Google Search

2. Here is a list of search engine friendly web directories to submit to: Freebacklinks.info

[edhan]

You do not need to pay for the submission to search engines nowadays.

What you can do will be creating your own blog with the anchor keywords link to your site. Submit targetted articles to article directories. At the same time, you can submit to link directories. Participating in forums on related topics with your signature. All these are done for free.

[Compu Solver]

So my advice is yes, use Joomla, and build for SEO at the same time.

Quick question: Hank, do you use Joomla Xplorer (cPanel) as well?

I haven't used Joomla Xplorer yet, but I will probably install it on some sites before I go on the road this summer. (But I usually have my trusty laptop, FTP software, etc.)

Yes, it is important to build any site with SEO in mind, right from the start. The thing with Joomla, is that if you don't use a good SEF component (and wisely) you can find yourself alone in an Internet desert.

- Hank Castello
Business Class Web Hosting for Small Businesses

[fortune68]

Thanks so much, Dubbya, for providing me with the LINKS to do all this stuff! It is no good for me to be told what to do and then I don't know where to go to actually do it!
Great suggestions.
Petra )

[webmaker]

I have a small search engine. Thought I would let you know that I have two links for your site already. You can take a look here: Yoddle Keywords :: site:mybeachdecor.com .
I just started a new directory project if you are interested. I think you would like it.

[Dubbya]

Originally Posted by fortune68

Thanks so much, Dubbya, for providing me with the LINKS to do all this stuff! It is no good for me to be told what to do and then I don't know where to go to actually do it!
Great suggestions.
Petra )

I'm just happy to help, as are the majority of the kindly folks you'll find hanging around here. We've all been where you're at.

Let us know how things work out.

ciau!

[astro]

I took a look at Joomla and the site tried to add all sorts of things to my computer especially outlook.

It sent my anti virus (AVG -paid for program) into overload with threat detections!

Astro

[Mumtaz]

Can you email me at rmgincorp@gmail.com what you intend to accomplish with your site.

Originally Posted by fortune68

Hi All,

I really am a Newbie - I have finished creating my first website ( Beach Theme Home Decor ) through a site builder program (unfortunately I got sucked in, I am sure there is a way of creating websites WITHOUT spending a few thousand dollars!!!), and now my site looks (finally) good after I cleaned up my HTML (what a learning curve!), and I am now reading through this forum trying to find more tips, explanations and helpful hints for SEO, Website Submission etc, and guess what:

A lot of it still just sounds like Chinese to me!!! I am soooo frustrated, the more I read the more questions I have, and now I don't know where to start any more! Many of the posts and replies which I had a look at to gain some insight are of little or no use to me because I simply don't understand what they are talking about with all the technical talk. Sorry!

I think the most important questions I have right this moment are:

1) How do I submit my site to the search engines (mainly Google, Yahoo, MSN) - I have posted that question before, and it seems I don't have to really do anything, just posting the sites link on this forum will make the search engines pick it up eventually. But will they pick up my whole site? How long will it take?

Can I use a free service? Or should I use a paid service? Or really just do nothing? Do I have to submit every single page of my site separately, or is it enough to just submit the main URL? Do I submit pages like "about Us" and "Site Map" as well? And do I have to have Meta Tags and a Meta Description for these, too?

Each of my web pages is centered around a certain keyword, and the Meta Tags and Meta Description are optimized for the Search Engines. So I want my Page "Tropical Home Decor" to rank high when somebody enters the search term "tropical home decor", or my page "Seashell Home Decor Accents" to rank high when somebody enters that search term.

2) Link Exchange: I want to gain some Page Rank (who doesn't), so I have just started emailing a few other site owners within the same theme (Owners who rank on the first page to the related search term) whether they would like to exchange links. Is this a good idea? Should I do it "by hand" or can I use a service or even buy links, too?

These are the main pressing questions at the moment, and PLEASE if anybody answers (and I hope there will be somebody!!), PLEASE consider that at the other end of this message is somebody who does not understand what CSS or Style Sheet or validating your site is. Please try to answer in absolute "SEO for absolute Beginners" sentences - if that is possible.

Thanks!!!!

Petra

[kula]

aloha kiddo,

I manage multiple sites in very different niches, been at it since 1994. Most of my sites have first page organic (as opposed to paid for) results for their target keywords on the big three and I haven't submitted anything at all since 1998!

Undoubtedly your hosting package includes some kind of stats. If you look at the traffic you will see that your pages have already been crawled (visited by the software programs called bots that search engines use to index web pages) repeatedly. You don't even have to submit your sitemap! Just build one that satisfies the Google sitemaps specs (you can get very inexpensive software that will do this for you automatically) and put a link to it in your page menus. The search engines will find it all by themselves.

Of course, with the web multiplying by billions of pages every (how long does it take the web to double in size now?) it takes time to float to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). The old timers here will remember the thrill of stuffing pages with meta keywords and invisible/hidden text, uploading the new site and finding it on webcrawler, altavista, metacrawler etc. the next day, and getting thousands of unique visitors on the third day. Now its a game of tweak and persist.

good luck!

[fortune68]

Hi kkharrison,
thanks for the backlink! I appreciate that...
Do you have a url for me to have a look at it?
Great advice from everybody!

Cheers,
Petra

[fortune68]

Hi everybody again,

I just wanted to really thank you guys for taking the time to give a Newbie such great insight and a lot of great stuff to learn. I will persist and I am sure I will eventually have some success.

If somebody like me comes along (Hey, in October last year I didn't know that there was a difference between a website and a webpage, and I had NEVER heard the word BLOG before!) it sometimes seems very daunting, and it is a steep (but exciting) learning curve, and having help like from you all in this forum is really invaluable.

So - KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND BE KIND TO ALL THE NEWCOMERS OUT THERE - I AM SURE YOU ALL WERE AT THAT POINT AT SOME TIME...

Petra

[Alan-Hart]

Just a quick note, i looked at a few categories in your site and noticed that you have a "Windchimes & Suncatchers" category with 6 pages of products.

It would make good sense to split this into two categories: one for "Windchimes" and another for "Suncatchers"

also in "Tropical Furniture and Decor" add sub-categories such as "Tropical Mirrors", "Tropical Lamps", "Tropical Chairs" etc.

The reasoning behind this is as follows: If i was looking for a new lamp i would search for "Tropical Lamp" and not "Tropical Decor"

Try and do this for all categories which contain multiple product types.

[edhan]

Everyone here is very helpful to newbies starting out since we were once a newbie.

If you have a good article about your site or products, you can submit your article to my article directory as it is regularly picked up by search engines. This is just a suggestion if you are interested to get new traffic audience for your site.

Hope this helps.

[incrediblehelp]

Petra more help from the ground up:

Search Engine Marketing For Newbies - Search Marketing & SEO Blog from Cincinnati, Ohio

[mikeggraham]

Originally Posted by bobitza

1) You do NOT have to submit all of the pages. In fact you only need to put together a sitemap ( sitemaps.org - Home ), upload it to your website and submit it to the big three. Do NOT pay for submitting! It is advisable to sign up for webmaster tools for all of the big 3 engines. Within those tools you'll find the option to submit a sitemap. Don't worry, it won't bite. Just sign up for a webmaster tools account and you'll have there an option to add a website and after that an option to add a sitemap for that website (basically you provide the link where the sitemap is located)

2) For Link Exchange, I would do it by hand and make sure I choose only relevant websites.

I also am a newbie, and quite frustrated with me programmer, as he isn't helping me at all.

When you say put together a site map and upload it to the web site, is the site map buried in the home page, or a separate file? If it is a separate file, do you tell Google or Yahoo to look at the separate file, and reference the domain name?

My domain name is usellahome.com. I have a web site for people selling their homes by owner. I finally got good placement with Yahoo, 1st page, 3rd item by putting the names of the cities I have listings in on the home page. If you type in "For sale by owner Surrey" on Yahoo I come up #3, not good on Google yet, but this is after 7 years in operation. Before I had a re-direct, so that was killing me. Anyway, what I am now trying to figure out is how to get the robots to look at all of the listings I have behind the domain name. They are in a database. Do I have to create a link for everyone of those listings and put them in a map?

I also have a few url's directing people to usellahome.com. For example usellahome.ca, yousellahome.com, yousellahome.ca all send people to usellahome.com. Ironically, google is seeing yousellahome.ca and not usellahome.com, which is the main name. I just did the re-direct of yousellahome.com less than 4 weeks ago.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated, but it has to be done in baby talk, step by step, if possible as I know nothing about site maps other than what I have gleaned from this thread.

Thanks.

Mike Graham

[Dubbya]

Originally Posted by mikeggraham

When you say put together a site map and upload it to the web site, is the site map buried in the home page, or a separate file? If it is a separate file, do you tell Google or Yahoo to look at the separate file, and reference the domain name?

Here are a couple of links to help you get started with sitemaps:

sitemaps.org - FAQ

Check your site for broken links and/or missing pages:

Find broken links on your site with Xenu's Link Sleuth (TM)

Create your sitemap:

Google Sitemap Generator for Windows :: GSiteCrawler

Upload the sitemap.xml file to the root of your web:
You no longer need a urllist.txt file as Yahoo! now supports .xml sitemap files.

Add a new line to your robots.txt file:
This allows the SE's to autodiscover your sitemap.xml file.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to leave an empty row beneath it!

Sitemap: http://www.putyoururlhere.com/sitemap.xml

Submit your sitemap to the search engines:
Submit the xml file manually through Google Webmater Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and at Live Search Webmaster Center. You'll need to create user accounts at each site, but the tools will prove invaluable, so it's truly worth doing.

If you like, try this online tool to do them all at once.
Submit XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, MSN (Live.com) and Moreover.com

Update your sitemap.xml file, upload it and resubmit it every time you add/remove pages or make any significant changes. You need not place a link to it on your homepage if you've provided the auto-discovery link in the robots.txt file.

Good Luck

[gauravgr8]

wow

sucha great guide for a newbie .....

amazing ,, learned a a lot

thankx dubbya

nice posting and content.

[govindseo]

yup no need to pay for Search engine submission best way is create xml site map and submit, i checked your site already index now my point of view you need to collect some quality back links!!!

[fortune68]

Hi all,

just thought I post a quick update on my story now that this thread has just come to life again (after more than a year!).

I have learned an incredible amount of stuff over the past year. And whilst I still have heaps to learn, I feel much more comfortable with what I am doing, and that's thanks to you all.

I managed to move my site about Beach Decor to another host - I actually moved it to a WordPress blog. I am making money from it consistently, and I haven't done anything with it for ages, so I am happy with that! Because it works, though, I am planning to work on building traffic to it and expand it, maybe change the look of it again... we'll see.

In August I started on creating my first blog on Internet Marketing, and I so love doing it!!! It has just gone up to a PR3 (I know that PR doesn't mean that much any more, but I am still excited!).

I have also been busy over the last few months writing my first book and it is now for sale online! Affiliate Marketing SOS it is called, and it got really good reviews from fellow Internet Marketers that had the pleasure to read it before it went live. Even John Thornhill and Richard Legg gave me a testimonial! - All I need to do still is put a sign up form on the sales page - been trying to the last few days but my kids and our business (and Easter Preparations!) haven't allowed me to sit down and do it.

So, there you have it! I have also changed my profile picture to one that was taken in March, so I am quite up to date!

Thanks again to everybody who put in their words of wisdom when I needed the help, and it looks like others after me have already profited from it, too!!!

To our success,

Petra

[Dubbya]

You go girl!

It's great to see a person flourish through hard work and determination.

Cheers to you for not being afraid to try something new!

[fortune68]

Thanks, Dubbya!!! It was hard work and determination (still is, very much so!) but yes, it does pay off over time. And if I can do it by dedicating 1 - 2 hours a day to learning and doing (even if it is at a snails pace), anybody can do it!

It doesn't matter to me if I should have a task done in a week and it takes me 10 weeks - as long as it gets done!

So, everybody, don't give up, whatever you do, because you only fail if you give up trying! (I guess you have all heard that before, but it's true).

Cheers!

[loosapphire]

Just like Petra, everyday I try to learn a little bit from this forum. It really help, of course it was daunting at the very beginning. It is getting better and better over time. It is so lucky to find this place. Guys here are very accommodating.