SEO Do I really know about this?

I rely upon someone else for database coding

[rickwells]

I have designed a website for a friend in the jewellery trade. <snip>. It went live in October 06 but is not ranked at all by Google. I'm not ofay with PHP and someone else did the database/coding. <snip>. In normal HTML I would have H1, H2, etc tags which most people deem to be quite useful, if not important. There are no header tags in the code. Why is this?

[edited by: physics at 4:21 am (utc) on April 6, 2006]
[edit reason] No URLs, see TOS #13 [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[celgins]

Well Rick, three things:

1) URL's are not allowed, so forum administrators will eventually remove your link.

2) They also frown upon soliciting direct advice for a particular website. However, you may seek help from others by sticky-mailing them.

3) I'm not really sure what your question is. If the programmer decided against using header tags (H1, H2, H3, ...etc), he/she probably chose to place outstanding text on the pages in another way.

[physics]

The thing to keep in mind is that PHP is a back end technology that does actually output 'normal' HTML (at least in this context it does). So when you go to your home page and view source, you're seeing the HTML that was generated by the PHP code.
Most programmers are not SEOs and will not go to the extra trouble of trying to add <h1> and <h2> tags, etc, unless they're really necessary.
Most store sites are built around tables and often within the tables the header tags aren't used much.
Anyway if you want <h1> and <h2> tags, etc you need to bother your programmer and tell them exactly where in the code you want these added.
You'll probably get more mileage out of promoting your site and getting incoming links/press, etc. though.

[rickwells]

My apologies if I contravened the rules of this forum. This was not deleberate - nor was there any ulterior motive. I have mis -interpreted the rules.
My programmer is on holiday for a couple of weeks and client is asking questions. I am delving into an area which is beyond me and perhaps I should just wait until he returns.
Thank you celgin and phisycs for taking the time to respond.