First Post, a couple of questions...

[bman9089]

Hello Everyone,

I've heard many great things about this website and forum and thought that I would come and see for myself. For the most part, I've learned all of my seo from the good people at webworkshop.net.

I've got a couple of questions about SEO to start out with. I've launched a new scrapbooking website/business. Scrapbooking is our industry. Not something I'm very keen on myself but my parents are. (By the way, I'm 16). I now have had the priveledge of running the business myself while they handle our primary business. The website I run is "http://www.fairytalecreations.com" and our main website is "http://www.crafterstoybox.com". I do all of the website work for both though including SEO.

Currently we're ranked in yahoo and msn for scrapbooking supplies and are working on the keyword scrapbooking. Although google has been a problem (we're out of the sandbox and I'm still having problems).

Whew, anyways! That's just some background info.

Onto the questions...

I've optimized my website for "scrapbooking". I'm wondering how long I'll have to wait for rankings (any, at all to know where I stand) to take place.

How long does it take for new websites to get rankings in yahoo and msn?

Also, I have added a couple links to my sig. I'm not just dropping in to post links, but if there is a problem with this, or if you need "this many posts" to do so, then let me know and I will remove them.

One last thing, I'm not sure how to upload my avatar. I didn't see a place to upload.

I can't wait to meet everyone. Please say hi, if anything at all of a response.

Thanks!!

-Brandon

[mike]

Hello and welcome.

http://www.webproworld.com/viewforum.php?f=37

That's where you submit an image.

The links in your sig are just fine.

had a quick look at fairytailcreations and there a few things you might think about from what I can see.

• * Think about permanantly redirecting (301 redirect) fairytalecreations.com/ to www.fairytalecreations.com/
  
  * Yahoo Site Explorer - not showing many links
  
  * Google link: query not showing many links
  
  * You need some more links.
  
  * Look for things of or related to paper art and paper hobbies (shadow boxes, rubber stamps, chalk art) look for really specific sites that might be genuinely interested in some aspect of your site.
  
  A library linking to children's art work etc. A .edu where someone did a project about scrapbooking in college or did a paper on a the history of/pathology behind (?) scrapbooking etc etc...
  
  * Find people that blog about scrap booking.
  
  * Start a blog about scrap booking, chalk art etc. Post lots of pictures etc (put em on flickr or whatever) Tag and describe them etc...
  
  * Rework maybe the deign of your page. You have anice site but there are a couple of little tweaks you could probably make to make it a little easier to read. The multi colored verticle lines thru the multicolored text, for example (specifically actually), would be a great plac to start.
  
  * Use title attributes on links and alt text on your images.
  
  * Carefully consider the title text of each sub page. For example: a title of " Template Packages" Could be better maybe. Think: "what kind of template pages are they?" You want each sub page to have it's own title but you should be conscious of keyword placement in these title tags.
  
  Don't be spammy and use words for the sake of having keywords you want in the title but do make the title clearly indicative of what that page is uniquely about specifically.
  
  Got a Google Sitemap?
  

Those are a couple things I'd say you might do well to think about.

Look forward to seeing you around the forum.

-Mike

[bman9089]

Thanks Mike, I'll look into that! :)

[bman9089]

Alright, I'm working on the 301 redirect now. I just set that up a few days ago with our other website (crafterstoybox.com) and am waiting to know if that could help google.

Also, here's something I've yet to discover. I've yet to figure out what is keeping our primary website crafterstoybox.com off of page 1. We've been up and running since 1995, I've had links in place and optimization in place for over a year now. In theory, I should already have the keyword "scrapbooking supplies". I have it in msn and yahoo but google is being stubborn.

Has anyone ever experienced this, and what could the problem be?

I give praise to anyone who can solve this puzzle because I've had no luck figuring it out.