I gotta make a change

seo

[pmac]

First let me say as a new visitor to this forum, I am incredibly impressed with advice, and the tone in which that advice and sharing is delivered. May good karma come to you all.

I am a complete newbie to all of this, but I think I have done alot of things right. I found a niche market, I know my competion, I am priced aggresively, and my site is finally live. Having said that, I think I have done some things badly. My idex page is very simple, with a large graphic at the top of the page, followed by a few links to enter the main portion of the site. This is followed by a short, keyword rich paragraph about my company.

My question is this. is it better to put the keyword rich paragraph at the top of the page, and put the graphics at the bottom? And do the search engines tend to rank you higher if you link directely to them?

If you wish to see the site, please email me and I will provide you with the url.

Thanks in advance for help.

Paul

[joshie76]

Hi pmac (I've wanted to do this since I joined) and welcome to WmW. (there, done it).

I am really impressed with your site - it looks fantastic. Well done.

I've never heard of engines improving your ranking because you link to them, maybe others know different.

It is the order of the source that the engine's spiders read so you could use an abolutely positioned layer with your KW text. This will allow you to move it nearer the top of the source.

<added>
We can see your URL in the user profile bit.

[agerhart]

(just an added thought)
very nice site......clean and professional

[pmac]

Thank you for your kind words. I wish I could take the credit, but I paid to have it built. I wish I had however given more thought to SEO before it was built. I seem to be doing things backward. Well.......I've built it......will they come?????

[NFFC]

>Well.......I've built it......will they come?????

In a word no, but you knew that anyway. My advice is to not start your promotional campaign yet, just hold off a little while and use the time to read, read, read.

One question, do you have any HTML skills youself?

[pmac]

very limited html skills. I know what most tags do however, (I just search them on the net) and feel comfortable changing tags, and text within tags. Other than the index page, the rest of the site is written in cold fusion which I have no knowledge whatsoever.

Cheers,

Paul

[paynt]

I join in welcoming you to the forums Paul, and am going to suggest a few of my favorite forum discussion that may benefit you as you begin to jump into your SEO strategy. I think they are fairly straightforward. You may have questions and I encourage you to ask them there, which could help and encourage others. Good luck

[webmasterworld.com...] basic site optimization
[webmasterworld.com...] themes
[webmasterworld.com...] really terrific about keywords
[webmasterworld.com...] because it goes into so many things, including canonicals, vortals, structuring a site, web promotion, search opportunities.

If that doesn’t exhaust you check out the Google information.
[webmasterworld.com...] terrific about spidering.
[webmasterworld.com...] about image linking.
[webmasterworld.com...] attracting Googlebot.
[webmasterworld.com...] all over Google stuff.
[webmasterworld.com...] the best for newbi Google interest.

Those are my top choices and I encourage others to share their own list.

[pmac]

Thanks very much for your help. I'm going GOOGLE eyed!