Forum Moderators: open
First off, I've been looking for several months for a site that has a knowledgeable and vibrant community, not just another product to promote, and I am so happy to have found this site, it really is fantastic.
I've read some of your intros on how to go about SEO, and hope you can answer some questions.
1. I got the Cool Site award for my category in ODP, and my site is number 17 in Google, but I only get about 15 unique front page views a day. However my free submission to Yahoo hasn't appeared and it has been 5 and a half months, so I'd like to pay the $299. Do you think I would stand a chance, and would it boost my page views significantly?
2. It sounds like links are the way to go. I'm considering using a program like Arelis 3 to generate a list of sites that could link to me. I would hand-check the list to make sure only sites with a similar interest as my own were contacted, then send a mail to all of them asking for a link. The list would be several thousand highly relevant sites, and if I mail them all over a period of time, would this be ethical?
3. Several of the highest ranking sites in my niche are simply collections of links to lots of small individual efforts. Is it OK to visit the large links collections, contact the sites listed, and ask for link exchange, even if it again meant several thousand mails over a period of time?
4. I've been seeking to collaborate with others to produce a convincing body of original content - I hear about 400 pages is the goal. However a lot of my content is Flash based, including my frontpage which is Flash-only with no HTML substitute. I reckon I'm shooting myself in the foot here SEO-wise. Any comments?
I've got a very simple plan of building as many links and as much content as possible. If I understand correctly what I've just read elsewhere on this site, that sounds like the key to a successful website.
many thanks for a great site,
Jeremy Paton
[edited by: jeremymgp at 10:29 am (utc) on Dec. 21, 2002]
1. I got the Cool Site award for my category in ODP, and my site is number 17 in Google, but I only get about 15 unique front page views a day. However my free submission to Yahoo hasn't appeared and it has been 5 and a half months, so I'd like to pay the $299. Do you think I would stand a chance, and would it boost my page views significantly?
Most definitely. With the right category listing this link could bump your site higher in Yahoo, and adds more credibility.
2. It sounds like links are the way to go. I'm considering using a program like Arelis 3 to generate a list of sites that could link to me. I would hand-check the list to make sure only sites with a similar interest as my own were contacted, then send a mail to all of them asking for a link. The list would be several thousand highly relevant sites, and if I mail them all over a period of time, would this be ethical?
This program can help find relative and complementing sites to link to and request a link from. However, I recommend doing personal and individual emails to each site owner, the "canned" emails are rather lame.
3. Several of the highest ranking sites in my niche are simply collections of links to lots of small individual efforts. Is it OK to visit the large links collections, contact the sites listed, and ask for link exchange, even if it again meant several thousand mails over a period of time?
Sure... why not!
4. I've been seeking to collaborate with others to produce a convincing body of original content - I hear about 400 pages is the goal. However a lot of my content is Flash based, including my frontpage which is Flash-only with no HTML substitute. I reckon I'm shooting myself in the foot here SEO-wise. Any comments?
Flash can work wonders for motivating visitors to do something but the trade off is needing alternative methods to promote since search engines have difficulty with dynamic applets.
It would be best to develop text-based HTML and develop links, once the links are in place (lots though) it won't matter what you have as all those links make you an authority on the topic.
I've got a very simple plan of building as many links and as much content as possible. If I understand correctly what I've just read elsewhere on this site, that sounds like the key to a successful website.
You got it.
Welcome to WebmasterWorld
That's a nice site you have (assuming it is the one in your email address) The URL at the bottom of you post will no doubt get snipped under TOS).
You have a PR of 6 which is very good
and my site is number 17 in Google
Its not petinent to your query, but why are you bothering to supress caching?
Best bet - start local for links, including government, City & Municipal, and any/all local business sites and move out from there.
I would guess (because of your directory) that you are themed with everyone.
You may however want to develop a static directory outside of Flash.
[edited by: fathom at 10:48 am (utc) on Dec. 21, 2002]
Five cracking replies in about 3 hours after my first post; that's about as good as it gets.
Really sorry about the URL, I've edited it out.
For the Flash/HTML problem, I'm inserting a link to an HTML index in my Flash movie preloaders, so if it takes too long to load the user can go to a speedy HTML only site. The HTML index will also load if Flash is not installed
Cornwall said:
>... Therein may be your problem. Depends what the punter
> has searched for. It's not 17 if I search for the only
> clue in your Title Tag.
My site's no. 17 in a particular category, not no. 17 for any particular search terms - big difference :) I'm sure you're right, I'll definitely need to have my Title tag, and also my Keyword and Description tags better thought out, the Title tag is particularly useless at the moment.
> Its not petinent to your query, but why are you bothering
> to supress caching?
A while ago I had problems with cache refreshing so I suppressed the cache as a test. I'll take it out.
>... then try putting more info on the front page in a
> robot readable form to try to cover that off.
Perhaps I should put a brief, keyword-rich passage on my index.htm (as well as other pages), so that together with good Meta Tags the robots will have something to go on apart from just a Flash movie.
Fathom said:
> I would guess (because of your directory) that you are
> themed with everyone.
I could be missing something here - what is "themed"?
Glengara said:
>As I don't have the plug-in, I just got a blank page ;-)
Thanks for the reminder that not everyone has Flash and most of us are still on dialup service providers.
Many thanks again for all your very useful responses,
Jeremy Paton
These are the most valuable sites that should link to you. The link anchor - whether text <a href="domain.com" title="your theme">your theme</a>
or with an image and alt="your theme".
These are what makes you more relevant to that topic. Bear in mind that content (raw text in your site) starts that theme process. With just Flash you have a big "nothing" theme since search engine robots can not parse Flash applets.
The links to you will help alot though.
My site's no. 17 in a particular category, not no. 17 for any particular search terms - big difference I'm sure you're right, I'll definitely need to have my Title tag, and also my Keyword and Description tags better thought out, the Title tag is particularly useless at the moment.
Jeremy
IMHO the position of any site in the directory is not the important factor - most punters will use the seach engine facility, rather than the directory facility on say Google (or Yahoo)
You would find it useful to think out what keywords people actually use. Here is a free keyword sniffer [goodkeywords.com] if you are not sure what to use to get some ideas
Thanks for the software link, it really is free and is a great help. At the moment I'm just looking at competitors' sites for their keywords and using a bit of common sense; it's nice to have a program to gel it all together. Thanks again,
warm regards,
Jeremy
Only let you have that 'cos it's Christmas :)
Cornwall
