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I am working in the IT Network site 5 weeks ago I suggested to my MD to create a company web page that would generate traffic and hits, I said : Why spend ££££££ when I can design one as a hobby? and so here we are: <snip>, the problem is that I do not know if this is a good site, a bad one and what it needs to attract more customers. I also used some sort of submit software but so far our page cannot be found or seen easly on major search engines and traffic is poor. Now because I suggested this it seems that I am an incompetend ( maybe it is true ) while I just wanted to safe some £££££££ for the wwww development. Could you please help me and tell me what's wrong with it and how I can improve site visits that are actually 0? and I can find the site on all search engines but only if I type the company name in the search keyword.......please help and you save my live.
I hope I sort my self out and keep the job , in the mean time I thank you all and wish you Mary Cristmas & happy new year.
Franco.
[edited by: engine at 12:36 pm (utc) on Dec. 31, 2003]
[edited by: agerhart at 2:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 31, 2003]
[edit reason] No urls, thanks. See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]
If you send me a sticky with the URL, I'll give it a look and perhaps there is something that can be easily fixed. But please keep in mind, some new sites these days are just are not showing well.
jb
Firstly - don't panic. All your compnay has lost is 5 weeks without a website - and that included thanksgiving and Christmas so they haven't lost a lot of time.
Second - Professional web designers also build websites that nobody ever sees. It is like printing new brochures and then never paying for the postage to send them to your customers.
Third - Search engine marketing is a big learning curve. Here are a few things that pros. Do that you can't possibly do with your Hobby site:
1) They tend to create 500 pages of real content for the site. Search engines need content. Some create multiple websites on different servers around the world, but that is probably not a good strategy for a beginner.
2) They build links into the site which will generate traffic - a bi-product of this is that search engines also like to see links into your webiste. A few hundred should get you going nicely.
3) They build sites in a very specific way generally, but you need to spend many hours here in WebmasterWorld to learn them.
If you don't have time for all that, my advice is for your company to spend the money they WOULD have spent on the web designers on Google Adwords. Guaranteed traffic and measurable results.
Don't feel guilty - it is not your fault. They wanted a websiye, you gave them a website. They want visitors, they better go and get them... have you emailed all your customers yet to tell them you have a new site? No? then start with the basics :)
[edited by: agerhart at 1:48 pm (utc) on Dec. 31, 2003]
[edit reason] stop dropping your URL [/edit]
and
This one Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone. [webmasterworld.com]
Both are right on target.....
It took 6 months for my site to appear in some engines when I first started. And I still get 404 errors from search engine spiders looking for pages over 1 year old. So that shows just how quick they are.
This is a field where the respectible "creme de la creme" of web site promotion won't make promises....it is a minefield.
This is one heck of a tough job.....I sure wouldn't take it on!
I hope you muddle through this situation okay.....the lesson to be learnt is that some areas are very tough, this is one of them, and best left alone ;)
k
I had a look at your site. It certainly doesn't look like it was done by an amateur from a design perspective. I would agree with others on here that you need to have some patience, I see the .co.uk domain wasn't registered until Nov18th.
It also looks like you are in a very competitive industry and it won't be easy to rank high in natural SE rankings. Some of your competitors (uk at that) at the top of those rankings look like they are "partnering" (buying Page Rank from) other, non related sites. I would suggest a few things:
- first be more innovative with your keyword phrases
- develop as many "high quality" inbound links as possible (preferably not returned inkind) high quality = high Page Rank and related to your industry (medical sites, legal sites, victims rights sites, local sites etc...
- ensure that you have paid for inclusion for some of the other SE, altavista, inktomi,fast, teoma... (~$150US for all 4 of them for 1 pg)
- Submit your site to directories like Dmoz, as well as to your city directories and any industry directories you can find (Do all submissions by hand)
- Unless you get into the buying page rank game, it may take quite awhile before you rank high in your subject rankings. You may want to deploy a Pay-per-click Search Engine campaign in the mean time. (Google Adwords, Overture, Findwhat...)
- get your domain name on all of your corporate documents (letter head, brochures, business cards, .....)
These are just some of my ideas, hope they help. I don't see why you would get fired for designing a "pretty decent" website for your company?
The story itself sounds somewhat suspicious... Not that this applies to you, but for anyone else, I have found you don't need to declare an emergency or have a bleeding heart story to get help on these forums, thats why they are here.
See you on the flip side,
mktman
