yahoo makes me very tired....

[acura5117]

Hi,
I have been reading all the various threads trying to learn some of this stuff and I understand a little. I am fairly new to this forum and this is my first post.

Can anyone tell me how to get the yahoo ranking tool on my tool bar, I have the one for Google. I know our rank is low on yahoo as I can't find either of my sites in the search unless i do a search on the actual names. The 2 sites I have are www.pondinfo.com and www.hilltopwatergardens.com. I seem to get a ton of different suggestions on what to do to improve the pr and so on, but they are always all over the place or I am told links are not important or metatags are worthless anymore or I have to list all my pics with certain key words so the spiders or bots(whatever they are) pick them up and move us up the search ladder.

I do the best I can with what little I know and I have spent some money search engine placement that was worthless. Blew a ton on ppc with very little to no actual sales. Made sense when I read about the PPR businesses out there. I mean how could 300 people come into my store(website) in one evening and not buy anything or even ask us a question?

I don't mean to ramble, but any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated with either of our sites. I have seen how some of you are able to just go on a site and see flaws or something that is missing just by entering.....perhaps I will get there someday with all this stuff. I have spent the past 2 days looking at Google & Yahoo and reading the threads and I am wiped out.

Thanks in advance for at least letting me type rather then read for a minute.

[buddhu]

Hi acura5117

Welcome to the asylum.

Baffling innit? But everyone starts somewhere.

You will see dozens of contradictory opinions about most subjects in this and other SEO forums. However, the more you read you'll gradually see a kind of consensus emerging, and you'll get to recognise the people who know what they're talking about from the ones who don't have a clue. Then there are the people like me who are starting to make progress, but still have a lot to learn.

Ok, lets try to get you started.

The Google toolbar doesn't actually tell your ranking. What it does is give an indication of something called PageRank (PR). PR is calculated by Google by some arkane formula that you don't really need to understand at the moment (and neither do I). PR is really just a hint about how much Google recognises that your site is a popular, potentially valuable resource. They guess this by seeing how many quality sites link to you.

If you want to actually check your ranking, I'd recommend you try: http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ which will tell you your position in a number of engines for any key phrase you specify (so long as you're in the top 100 places.

The first thing to do is to make sure your pages are a) visitor friendly, with something worth reading or using and b) search engine friendly.

Basic SE things-to-do would be:
* Choose 1 or 2 keyphrases per page that you think your audience will use to search for your service/product/site. 2 or 3 word phrases are probably better than single words.
* Give your page a meaningful title containing your keyphrase(s), but keep it as short as possible.
* Use the meta keywords tag (just in case some SEs do still want it), but only use keywords which actually occur on the page, and don't repeat your keyphrases.
* Write a good meaningful description for your description meta. If you can get your keyphrases in there then go ahead, but don't repeat them.
* Use your keyphrases as early as you can in the page using natural, helpful text.
* Try to have your phrases occur once in (h1), (b) and in the anchor text you use in your internal links.
* Build a text site map and make sure all your pages are on it and that it is linked from all pages.
* Use keywords in the 'alt' text for linked images as you would for anchor text.
* Don't stuff loads of keywords anywhere - it won't help.
* Don't worry too much at the moment about putting keywords in 'alt' text of non-link images, names or IDs of link anchors or elements, or link titles. While some of these may help a bit, the jury seems to still be out.

Ok, that's a start for on-page stuff, and making sure your site is crawlable.

To get found you'll need links to your site. To begin with, submit to as many good directories as possible. It is worth paying the small fee to get into some of them. There are threads on that subject in these forums.

I wouldn't recommend submitting to search engines.

Try to get incoming (backlinks) links to your site with your keyphrases in the anchor text. If pages that link to you have high PageRank it can't hurt, but don't lose sleep if high PR sites are reluctant to link to you until you're established.

There are threads here about getting links.

Avoid linking *to* any site that seems to do things that SEs don't like. Don't link to sites that are just pages of links, unless they are proper, structured, useful directories. Don't seek links from sites with huge, unfocused link pages, or ones that offer link exchanges using automated scripts.

The above are my suggestions. I seem to be doing quite well at the moment with plenty of #1 and #2 positions in Google and Yahoo.

If anything I've said is wrong I'm sure someone will tell us.

Good luck.

[buddhu]

By the way, pondinfo.com is #5 on Google for "pond information", and #58 on Yahoo for the same term.

For "pond supplies" it's #75 on Google and #94 on Yahoo.

Dude, things aren't as bad as you seem to think. You're not off to a bad start!

Keep reading these forums and you'll be fine :-)

[Kenai Alaska]

Welcome to our second home..

First buddhu is pretty much right on. There is some good info in what he has posted.

Now here is my two pennies for what they are worth.
In a nutshell.
1. Choose one main keyword per page.
2. Title, Needs to reflect the Page Contents and include the chosen keyword(s). Preferably in the first three words of the title.
3. Description, Describe the page to your audience. Include the keyword(s)
4. Keywords must be repeated on page in normal language about three to four times. Don't go overboard.
5. Include the keywords in some anchor text on the page.
6. Use external stylesheets and link out to them.
7. Same for Javascript.
8. Content - content - content. Get it close to the opening <body> tag as possible, high up in the page code. Yahoo and MSN seem to respond far better when this is done.
9. Can the template and code by hand or at least with a good editor like Dreamweaver.
10. Include the proper doc type in the head.
11. Validate your code. http://validator.w3.org/
12. Get some links using your keywords in the anchor text.
13. Shoot for a maximum of 10 second download times on a normal 56k modem. This is more for your customers not the search engines.
14. Engage the audience in the site. Add polls or suggestion forms
15. Be descriptive and to the point. Try to not ramble on as I am told that I like to do.
16. Have someone proof read your site and see if they are inclined to buy.
17. Get a copy of Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” Paperback published by Pocket Books. My copy is to old to have an ISBN. Barnes and Nobles carries it and I find it worth it’s weight in gold. Mine was required reading back in my college days and I have given every new employee one during their orientation for the past 20 some odd years.
18. This one is my own and judge it as such. Try to attract customers that are looking for your products or services not just traffic to visit your site. Buy or trade for some advertising links from sites that attract those customers. An example would be for your site Pondinfo.com, buy or trade some links with installers, manufactures, and other product suppliers in the field. Also garden suppliers and landscapers, be creative here, where would you find your customers? What are there bios?

Good links are worth far more than page rank, they produce customers that purchase products, PR should be more of a secondary benefit from such quality links. Don’t overlook advertising in newspapers and magazines but keep it within budget. Yahoo treats a site like this very well, Google is more about inbound links in my opinion. We have a site that has been down for nearly two months but still places on the first page of Googles searches even after notifying them of the fact that it is gone for good. Did I mention that I have a tendency to ramble on? Well you did ask for some outside input.

Getting into the top ten of the search results takes time and patience. By employing item 18 you can be getting new customers to your site in a very short time and the search results will soon follow.
Hope this helped you.

Come back to WebProWorld every night and study what others are doing. This is a very open and helpful group of people that thrive on helping each other. It's getting to be a habit dropping in here. I have been stopping by nearly every night now for near to 7 months... It's been a good 7 months.

[Master85]

What a Jerk on wheels. Oh yes where's my grub

[rovers]

Better being a jerk on wheels than a jerk walkin'!
I actually think he talks some good sense but I'm not so keen on the external style sheets and java stuff...

[MathsIsFun]

Thankyou buddhu and kenai - excellent posts.

It encapsulates a lot of what is stated by many posters in one easy thread - this could be a place to direct newcomers, or anyone who gets lost in the SEO maze.

And complete with some contradictory opinion and the odd comment from left field, too !

I have been working on a site now for 6 months and am only now seeing a *glimmer* of success around the corner.

One of the hardest things for me was (and still is) to figure out which keywords to target - I started with too wide a spread of keywords in a very competitive field - I am now targetting keyphrases I feel I can win.

So, research your keyphrases first, then place them in different contexts on the page without "overloading" them, and get inbound links that mention your keywords in their link text.

And keep reading - coz things change, and with Yahoo fighting back against Google, and MSN soon to release their own search technology it is going to be an interesting time !

[buddhu]

AvgJoe: dead right. researching your keywords is vital. There's no point in optimising for phrases that a) no one searches with, or b) don't bring the right kind of visitors.

Here's a few places I find useful for compiling my keyword lists:
http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.espotting.com/popups/keywordgenbox.asp
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
http://www.wordtracker.com/
http://conversion.7search.com/scripts/advertisertools/login.aspx
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
http://www.nichebot.com/
A list of link suggestion resources is here:
http://www.dwoz.com/default.asp?Pr=123

[greeneagle]

buddhu:
"You will see dozens of contradictory opinions about most subjects in this and other SEO forums."

After playing in the Forums for a year, I am thoroughily convinced that most of the disagreement comes from different experiences in a complex domain. It is good to hash these positions out so that everyone can see the "opposing" views and understand more in the overall process.

Ken

[greeneagle]

OOPs sorry about that everyone. Without editing capabilities I can't go back and correct "thoroughily" to "thoroughly".

Ken

[acura5117]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I have a lot of work still to do I see.

[greeneagle]

buddhu

Going back a ways: You know when you get past "Start" the rules seem to change?

With you in the Asylum!

LOL
Ken

[buddhu]

buddhu

Going back a ways: You know when you get past "Start" the rules seem to change?

With you in the Asylum!

LOL
Ken

Yipe! You mean there *are* rules once you get past start? I was under the impression that increasing experience just uncovered deeper layers of entropy. ;-)

Does this mean that I'll have to abandon my newly-formed anthropic principle theory of SEO, wherein I suggest that all the rules and algorithms are merely artifacts of our subjective perception of the SEO universe?

"Our sites are not top of the SERPS because of the great SEO job we do: rather, we are in our SEO jobs because our sites are top of the SERPS..."

Sorry... I'll get my coat.



edited for typo.

[buddhu]

Oh, and Ken...


buddhu:
"You will see dozens of contradictory opinions about most subjects in this and other SEO forums."

After playing in the Forums for a year, I am thoroughily convinced that most of the disagreement comes from different experiences in a complex domain. It is good to hash these positions out so that everyone can see the "opposing" views and understand more in the overall process.

Ken

I totally agree about the thrashing out of conflicting positions being a good thing.