How to bring users to my site?

cgi, faq, html, perl

[webguru]

i've created a web site.

Its listed on most major search engines. Not highly ranked but its there.

but i can't seem to bring users to my site. what can I do to bring users to my site?

I have an faq, and discussion forums, but how can I bring users to my site?

[SEO practioner]

Hello Webguru and welcome to WW

What you need is to optimize your site. You need to make ''it search engine friendly'' ie, make sure that search engines such as Google and the others can easily
find it and index it properly.

Also the way your web site was built will affect its rankings in the engines. The amount of page rank of your site is directly proportional to the amount of inbound links pointing to your site. The higher the number, the higher your page rank and usually the higher will your rankings be, especially in Google.

You will find a wealth of information here. It is as much for beginners, as for people at the intermediate-level or as advanced experts.

I am pretty sure you will learn a lot here.

I hope this was of help to you.

[takagi]

Hello webguru,

Maybe you should try to think as a user. Why should a user want to go to your site?

What keywords are likely to be used to find your site. Try to improve in the SERPs by adding content, getting relevant inbound links. It can also help if you study other sites with similar content. What backlinks do they have?

The discussion forums on your site are the core of the site, or just some extra feature?

Do you know what keywords were used on SEs by the current users?

Studying the Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone [webmasterworld.com] thread can also be very helpful.

I don't know your site, so it is difficult to give some advice. Anyway, I hope this helps.

[Chicago]

Start with Pay per Click (PPC) ads using Overture and Google's AdWords. This is the easiest and most effective way to get started. Take your time reading and getting started with both services paying careful attention to keyword factors and choices.

From this basis, take some time to learn the art of SEO, but don't getted bogged down in the details. It is amazing how far good keyword analysis, a good title tag, good header tags, and effective keyword density can get you in most circumstances.

[webguru]

For my FAQ section, which is where the nuts and bolts of my website are all about, I have dynamic links. Which means when you click on a link, it opens and reads a file and generates an FAQ on the fly.

Unfortunately I don't think search engines follow dynamic links. If it does however, i believe I have a good chance of getting ranked higher up.

However, i don't want to reinvent the wheel and rewrite the application. Is there anyway to make search engines read my FAQ which is where all the good keywords are located.

[edited by: Woz at 6:02 am (utc) on April 2, 2003]
[edit reason] No URLs please. [/edit]

[takagi]

It seems, Google recently started to spider more dynamic pages. But if this is not yet good enough for your site, try one or more of the following hints to get more pages indexed.

1. Avoid the name "id" for parameters
Changing a URL from "www.mysite.com/faq.php?id=123" into "www.mysite.com/faq.php?f=123" could result in more dynamic pages being indexed. Google doesn't like the "id" part becuase some sites use this for tracking sessions.

2. Improve your PR to get more (dynamic) pages spidered
The higher the PR on your homepage/site, the more (especially dynamic) pages will be spidered. Of course, getting more inbound links is always a good idea.

3. Make the dynamic page look like a static page
Use mod_rewrite to rewrite the site URLs so they appear static.

4. Avoid extreme long URLs

5. Add a sitemap with links to (the missing) dynamic pages
Any SE can only index pages that can be found. Google will remove pages from the index without a link to it.

[xcandyman]

Avoid the name "id" for parameters
Changing a URL from "www.mysite.com/faq.php?id=123" into "www.mysite.com/faq.php?f=123" could result in more dynamic pages being indexed. Google doesn't like the "id" part becuase some sites use this for tracking sessions.

Can anyone back this up?

Thanks

Steve

[takagi]

Hi xcandyman, please check msg #3 at this thread [webmasterworld.com]. I thought I saw beter examples at WebmasterWorld about not using "ID" in the URL. But at this moment I can only find remarks about real Session IDs causing problems.

[bcolflesh]

1. Avoid the name "id" for parameters

I keep seeing this advice, but I have a PHP-based site using?ID= that has all 6000+ pages indexed, another is an ASP-based one w/all 400+ pages indexed.

Maybe this is no longer an issue for Google.

Regards,
Brent

[xcandyman]

Thanks I noticed that thread just after I posted. We have lots of sites using "id=" and the pages not being listed at all makes me wonder.......

Thanks

Steve

[xcandyman]

That is because your using ID= ( uppercase ) it looks as though the problem is with id= ( lowercase )

Steve

[takagi]

Or see 2nd remark of msg #3 at Only 9999 instances of dynamic page indexed. A limit? [webmasterworld.com]

Especially if the parameters real name on your site is indeed 'id' (not a good choice, judging from older topics).

[takagi]

> That is because your using ID= ( uppercase ) it looks as though the problem is with id= ( lowercase )

It would really surprise me if Google was case sensitive for this parameter. Google is usually not case sensitive. The only exception I know of is the 'OR' (which must be in uppercase) for a Boolean search.