Search Engine Marketing

[cyberbless]

I'm not new to webdeveloping but I'm rather new to web mastering which I understand to be a more involved with, not just development, but also the marketing of a site(correct me if I'm wrong). I've developed a site in php and for the life of me I can't get it to show up in some of the more popular search engines. Does any have any suggestions? I don't want to violate the rules of this forum so if you need the url leave me a post it or p/m

[Ozark]

cyberbless Welcome to WebmasterWorld

Brett's classic post Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone is a great place to start.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Ozark

[cyberbless]

It certainly was (a great place to start). Thank you :) Any more suggestion are welcome. I've already started doing some of what Brett suggested. 95% of the things he mentioned I was not doing though. Since it takes a year to see results, Is there anything else that I could or should be doing at the same time?

[ken_b]

It doesn't necessarily take a year to see results. It might take that long to see the full impact, but some improvement could be seen much sooner.

That said, your post really doesn't give us much to comment on. Some things that would help to know are:

1: Are any other sites linking to your site? That's critical, without at least a few links from other sites you aren't going to get far.

2: Is your current site more than a few pages? Generally, the greater the number of pages, the better chance you have of the site turning up in the search results. Not all sites lend themselves to having a large number of pages, but basically, the more the better.

3: When you say your site doesn't show up in the search results, do you mean not at all (as in it doesn't show up if you search for "www.yoursitename.com", or just not for the search terms you are trying to focus to attract visitors?

[mack]

This might help a little.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Mack.

[808image]

Try posting on high traffic web sites, such as backpage.com and craigslist. Make sure that the link to your web site is active. In other words, so people can click on it. All you need is a snippet of html code. Use your keywords for your headline so that people can find you. As search engines crawl those sites, it will eventually follow your link to your site and crawl yours. I'm getting over 3,500 visitors a month to my web site by doing it, and I DON'T use paid services like Overture.

Keep in mind that it will still take anywhere from 6 months on up to a year for you to show up high on search engines. Anyone tells you that they can guarantee you top positions are naive.

[cyberbless]

Thanks all for the help so far. Sounds like a little background might help me get some better talored help. I've been working on the site for about 3 months. It's live on the internet. The splash page is currently an under construction page while I work on the site in the background. So the testing environment and the live environment are one and the same.

Ken_b:

1. No there are no sites linking to this site yet, that is on purpose at this time.

2. It is currently more than 20 pages. About 18 of those are php pages and a couple or more are static .htm/html pages. When the site is complete though it will be quite the opposite; It will be about 90% static pages and 10% dynamic .php. This is one of my concerns though, which brings me to your 3rd question.

3. My site shows up in some search engines but not other at this point. it's on yahoo, but not on google If someone could tell me why that would be it would help untie a not in brain.

I know some search engines have a hard time with dyanamic pages, javascript and flash. They are necessary on this site. What can I do to ensure that these pages are handled properly? I've familiarized myself with robots.

Thanks mack. It was helpful, if ya' had a couple of books you wanted to recommend that would be great also. 808image's post was helpful too. If anyone has any other great recommendations for high traffic websites please send them to me.

I'm near the ending of the development for the site. After this it's more like maintenance which also requires the systematic creation of new pages as time goes on. As apposed to all the other sites, where I've simply developed them and then left the marketing to the business owner this site requires that I maintain it, which includes the periodic adding of new merchandise and news over time. In other words it's a permanent job and permanent "owner ship" of the website, hence the need to acquire knowledge on how to market this site. Thank you all, keep the advice and information coming.

Bless

[ken_b]

Not having any inbound links is essentially going to keep you out of Google. They find new sites by following links from pages on other sites they already have in the index.

Being in one search engine index doesn't mean the others will pick your site up also. It's not automatic, and it could take awhile. Links to your site are very important.

Look in the Link Development Forum here for ideas about getting links from other sites. Lots of good stuff there.

I can't address the html/php issue because I simply haven't had to deal with it.

The reason I asked about the number of pages is that the more pages you have, the more chances you have at coming up in a search.

That's because you can be more focused on a given subject for each page as opposed to trying to cover multiple subjects on a single page.

That can make a big difference.