Questions about getting hits - keywords, and hosting

keywords robot hits hosting

[ronanski]

Hello,
I am unfortunately very amateur in website development and design, marketing, howver I have a good understanding of programming and the underlying HTTP protocol.

My need is to publish a small non-commercial website, and I need advice on what I will need to do to allow surfers to find my site by keywords, etc. I understand the meta tags are depreciated, must one buy keyword inclusion with google, yahoo and other major search engines, or will my website be crawled by robots if I do nothing?

This is about advertisement but for non-commercial purposes, only to enable my site to show up high in the list of results in google, yahoo, etc.

As well, I am interested in anyone with experience with web hosting companies that might be suited for a not-commercial project like mine (low cost, non "adult" but technical in nature). There are a ton of WH companies to look at!

Thank you!
Ronan

[Matt Probert]

Your site will basically be crawled if you do nothing. It wont hurt to manually submit the home page to Google, Inktomi and Dmoz, however.

Matt

[Leosghost]

you are going to need incoming links ..from other websites ..so either your content must be so good that people will naturally put up links to you from their sites ..and the search engines will follow them and thus "rate" your site ..or you must submit your site to "directories" in the same field as your site ..or you must submit your site to the dmoz or open directory projct ( here we go again with the dmoz flames no doubt ..don't high jack the thread guys )..or you must pay for appearing on the pages of such as google via adwords ..

Welcome to WebmasterWorld ronanski ..and welcome to SEO

[mack]

here we go again with the dmoz flames no doubt ..don't high jack the thread guys

hehe not on my shift :)

Knowing the basics of how the web works will be a real advantage for you. To an extens SEO rules are based on how the web works. As has already been stated getting inbound links is very very importaint. Links are how users can find your site. They are also how search engine spiders can find your site. The more link pointing to your site you have the easier it is for spiders to find your site. The easier a site is to find the more search engines like it.

Mack.

[ronanski]

Thank you everyone for the excellent responses thus far.

I can see incoming links are important, as is accessible, well-designed web content; I imagine if I were experienced to a level where I could create an excellent site like [webmasterworld.com ] or [Wikipedia.org ] I would have no problem getting my site ranked high by SEOs, however, practically speaking, it will take some time for me to develop the required skills.

I'd appreciate anyone's comments on if software (open source, freeware) exists to help inexperienced webmasters create web content, based on a Wiki, which is more likely to rank higher with SEOs and generally have the qualities desired by sites which have similar interests? I guess I'm asking about software with inbuilt knowledge of SEOs and W3C guidelines.

Or, are there web hosts who provide site-development tools enabling this?

Our site will represent a group of individuals whom have a common goal to find and network with like-minded parties; most of us have full time jobs in (non webmaster) high-tech fields, for example, rocket science, sound reinforcement, professional video hardware. Thus far, we are a group of local friends with "extreme" hobbies -- we enjoy unusual construction projects, for example we are currently building a very large loudspeaker (based on an exponential horn). Another is revitalizing and firing a surplus jet engine. Another may be to build a large tesla coil, a walking-talking robot, or a large laser. Yet another could be to promote an outdoor concert to promote a non-profit charity.

Phew. I'm sorry about the verbosity here.. but I hope to convey my intent - in writing this I realize I will need links from sites related to our interests, for example, non-commercial (technical interests), non-profit and charity causes, sound reinforcement (PA systems), "big boy/girl toys", "huge things that make big noises?", "projects you can build yourself outdoors that go bump in the night", who knows where it might go..

Please let me know if I should repost this to a different forum; here is a summary of my current questions:

1. How does one go about getting incoming links from external sites with similar interests based on what I have outlined?

2. Is there any useful freeware available to assist non-expert (and yet with the ability to learn) web developers to create useful, "linkable", Wiki-based web sites that are easy to maintain, and extensible by non-technical members/users?

3. Are there any web hosts who provide low-cost or free space and tools to non-commercial groups such as ours? I'm leaning towards web hosting only because I am not yet able myself to build a robust and functional web, hosting our content on a server we own, however I hope to move quickly in this direction.

Thank you again!
Ronan(ski).

[marketingweb]

Ronan, I'm amazed by your last post! You really can build all those things? And more so in your free time? I think everyone on this forum has to help you promote technology in the world!

I can answer your first question by sharing my own experience. I work in web marketing. To put a link to your site on somebody else's you have to:

1. Get your site done and running.

2. Find the target sites (related to your topic, respectable, that are present themselves in the major search engines - Google, Yahoo, MSN, but most importanltly - google.)

3. Then you contact the owners of the site and ask them if they mind putting a link on their website. Most likely they will want their own link on your site in return or ask for something else - it's all negotiable. Most sites have contact info on them. If they don't you can find it at whois.com

And lastly, you might want to learn some basic search engine optimization strategies if you want your site to get nice listings in the engines. You can take a look at various ranking factors here: www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php

Also #*$!.com seems a very useful resource. It's a bit overwhealming at first for a complete newbie to web marketing and SEO, but I think it carries basic info on most SEO topics.

[ronanski]

Folks,

Anyone care to comment on how search engines like google, yahoo, dmoz, etc rate webhosted sites built with tools provided by GoDaddy.com? I wonder if the site building tools do as they claim and can save us time initially to get our site out there, and with high enough quality to be a good candidate for cross linking with other websites?

Thanks in advance!

Ronanski

[Leosghost]

never tried em couldnt say ..however in an even handed world one persons "homesite" shold be treated as any other ..BUT ..they will probably be bloated and full of linkspam and other such horrors ..better to do it by hand or use somthing like dreamweaver in a tbyb ..or arachnophilia etc..

your kilometrage may vary :)

[Beagle]

ronanski--I don't know anything specifically about GoDaddy's site-building tools, but most online tools offered by webhosts are limited to their sites. That is, if you decide to change to a different host at some point, you have to leave your site behind (because it can only be edited by using the host's tools) and start over. Check into what the limitations are on a specific program before deciding to go with it. It's difficult to be sure that you're never going to want to change hosts.