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A week ago I put up a new website for my business. I didn't realize that you need to do a lot of other things to get Google/Yahoo/Bing to notice your site. I have been playing with this all week and I really don't know when to expect results with what I've done so far.
1) Links to my site: I belong to a couple of professional associations that allow me to put my website link on my profile. From what I have read, this really helps.
2) Facebook: I created a new Facebook page for my business. So far, it doesn't show up in Facebook search so I can't even Like my own site. It will also not let me add myself as an admin. From what I have read, having a link to my site on Facebook is kind of important and will help the search engines notice my website
3) My site is hosted by Weebly. I own the domain name. I followed all the recommendations from Weebly for SEO. I have meta keywords on my site and on most of the pages. All of the keywords are in the copy on my site. I put something for Google and Bing/Yahoo in the header code section of my website.
4) I have a Blog on my site. So far I have posted 5 articles on it. I have read that the search engines love new content, so I will try to add to it every couple of weeks.
I don't know what else to do, honestly. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or just not patient enough. I was really hoping to get some pre-holiday traffic (I sell gift certificates). One week in, here's what's happening:
Google: Site only shows up when I use my business name and city as search terms. It is not finding it based on any of the other keywords on the site.
Yahoo/Bing: Site only shows up when I put in my business name similar to my domain name. And even then it shows the message: Thank you for purchasing (my domain name). This temporary landing page will be replaced when you publish your site. When you click on it, though it does take you to the site.
This is so frustrating! There are probably a lot of people who are counting on website traffic for most of their leads, so the delay is killing me.
So does it sound like I'm doing all the right things? How long does this take?
I know quite a bit about SEO.
It can takes weeks. Months. Easily.
You should NOT expect instant results. If it was that easy all we would EVER see would be results for people selling services. If it was that easy NO ONE WOULD TRUST GOOGLE RESULTS.
#1 is very key. Good job there. The more INBOUND links you have, the better.
#2 Matters very little.
#3 What about <h> tags? Google and Yahoo look at those, too. If I could see your site, it might help. Link? Many times someone will have WELCOME as an H tag. Well that means NOTHING to Google so it doesn't help. GIFT CERTIFICATE INFO might be better.
#4 Blogs are great. Can be. IF PEOPLE ARE READING AND SHARING THEM. If no one is sharing it it won't have a significant impact. But a blog certainly can help if it is interesting to people. It's a recommended avenue to pursue. Don't give up on that.
But really you need to be patient. You should have started in August. This can take a long time as there are 1,000's of sites out there competing for that precious first or second page on Google...
Thanks. I couldn't start in August. I had to file Articles of Organization with the SOS, then get a business license, before I purchased a domain name. Then it took about a month to build the website and content. And during that time I was also working with and learning to use software to run my business.
I don't know what an <h> tag is. Is it this? This is the code I copied into the header section. Is this it?
The first one is for Google and the second one came from Bing/Yahoo.
Weebly also tells me there are 301 redirects. I don't know what that means...does it mean when people type in an invalid address similar to mine they will be redirected to my site?
Here is what Weebly gives me:
Site Description - this is where I put the business name and a description of what we do
Meta Keywords - I put every search term I could think of that someone would use to find my site. All of these terms are imbedded in the text on the site
Then for each page, I get a Page Title, Page Description, Meta keywords, and Header and Footer code. This was probably the most confusing to me. I put Meta keywords for each important page here. I'm not sure how these show up in search. It is really difficult when you make a change to see how it's going to impact the search results, since it takes so dang long to show up.
I can't put my site address up here because it would be considered spam. I appreciate your general advice. This is quite stressful for me because being a webmaster is not what I want to do. I want to be doing my primary business activity, not this, and I am quite computer illiterate.
ETA: If by H tags, you mean paragraph headers, yes, I have those on almost every page. This is in addition to the tabs on the menu bar. I also have paragraph headers on my blog. Keep in mind I am using the Weebly platform so I didn't have to worry about HTML.
Last edited by goldenncmom; 12-07-2012 at 02:39 PM..
Don't expect overnight success, age and history for both the domain and the pages is one of the factors here and that is not something you SEO under any circumstances. The problem with SEO is Google wants to make sure it's presenting the best content to it's users and sites are trying to get the best ranking regardless of how good their site is. For example there has been lot of discussion amongst webmasters about sites/pages that were over optimized losing rank. If you stick to the basics of providing good original content you'll do well eventually, keep in mind you're trying to compete against people who do this for a a living.
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Originally Posted by goldenncmom
1) Links to my site: I belong to a couple of professional associations that allow me to put my website link on my profile. From what I have read, this really helps.
Inbound links are important.
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3) My site is hosted by Weebly. I own the domain name. I followed all the recommendations from Weebly for SEO. I have meta keywords on my site and on most of the pages. All of the keywords are in the copy on my site. I put something for Google and Bing/Yahoo in the header code section of my website.
Meta Keywords are not that important but there is no harm in using them. Title tags and the the meta description are important. Be sure that every page has it's own title and own description. You're better off using no desription than some generic one repeated on each page and be sure to do the same thing with the keywords too. If you're going to try and fine tune results this is where to start.
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4) I have a Blog on my site. So far I have posted 5 articles on it. I have read that the search engines love new content, so I will try to add to it every couple of weeks.
That's excellent, there is no single thing that can help your site more than fresh original content.
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How long does this take?
It takes what it takes, 1 month is not very long. If it were 15 years ago you might be having some success but now you're competing against 6 gazillion other sites. What you can do is search for the keywords you're looking for and see who the competition is.
Last edited by thecoalman; 12-08-2012 at 04:52 AM..
I don't know what an <h> tag is. Is it this? This is the code I copied into the header section. Is this it?
HTML tags are semantic, they have meaning and should be used properly. This tells the machine or Google what the content is.
<p> = paragraph
<li> = lists
The <h1> tag is for the heading and should be similar if not identical to the meta <title> tag. This should appear at or near the top of the page . You should only have one <h1> tag. Other headings lower in the page can be reused.
These are for validating you are the owner of the site with Google and Bing Webmaster tools so they will give you access to information relating to your site. They are specific to your accounts with those services, if these weren't provided to you by these services remove them.
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Weebly also tells me there are 301 redirects. I don't know what that means...does it mean when people type in an invalid address similar to mine they will be redirected to my site?
A redirect is if for example you move a page on your site, you can direct to the new page.
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Site Description - this is where I put the business name and a description of what we do
Meta Keywords - I put every search term I could think of that someone would use to find my site. All of these terms are imbedded in the text on the site
As I said above make sure these are unique for each page, you'll do more harm than good with duplication of meta keywords and descriptions. Don't go crazy either, keep them short and sweet. Also keep in mind the description is often used by Google and other SE's as the snippet of text used in search results.
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Then for each page, I get a Page Title, Page Description, Meta keywords, and Header and Footer code. This was probably the most confusing to me. I put Meta keywords for each important page here. I'm not sure how these show up in search. It is really difficult when you make a change to see how it's going to impact the search results, since it takes so dang long to show up.
If they are giving you a choice for each page the first one you mentioned is either the default or for your home page. If it's default leave it blank because again you don't want duplication, just make sure your home page has them marked up if you leave it blank.
The title and the description is the only thing that is going to appear in search results. The Title will be the link text and the description is often used as the snippet below that link text.
Here's tip for titles especially if you're trying to target local customers,
Page 1
Yellow Widgets - goldenncmom's Anywhere, State
Page 2
Blue Widgets - goldenncmom's Anywhere, State
I don't know if this helps or is informative, but here is my site layout (services business):
Page names (this shows up across the menu tab bar):
Home (this is an introductory paragraph with a Title to introduce the business and our mission)
About (3 Paragraph titles here, one being about the Owner and one about the Facility, etc)
Services (3 paragraphs with titles here, listing the types of services we offer)
Pricing (a list of prices for different services and packages, with a gift certificate purchase link button)
Scheduling and Forms (a title for Online Scheduling and one for forms to fill out pre-appointment)
Blog (with a title for each blog post)
Contact (a title with our general location, with lines below for contact information (phone, email)
Resources (a couple of paragraphs with titles that include links to sites we like or are affiliated with)
So for the HTML title tags I have:
"Home" Page Title: One line tag line for the business slogan
"Home" Page Description: A short description of the business type and location, along with major services offered
"About" Page Title: About Us
"About" Page Description: Staff and Facility Information
"Services" Page Title: Services We Offer
"Services" Page Description: I listed the 3 paragraph titles with the types of services
"Pricing" Page Title: Pricing
No page description, I thought this was self-explanatory
"Scheduling and Forms" Page Title: Scheduling and Forms
No page description, self-explanatory
"Blog" Page Title: A short description of the blog
"Blog" Page Description: Enjoy our tips on (related content)
"Contact" Page Title: We are located in (location) and would love to hear from you.
No page description, self-explanatory
"Resources" Page Title: Resources for ___ and ___ (paragraph titles).
No page description, self-explanatory
Does this look OK? Thanks!
ETA: I have sent a message to a lot of my Facebook friends asking them to go to my website and "like" my blog posts so that it shows up in their feed. Hopefully people will do this and it will generate traffic from Facebook to my site. Do you think this will help the search engines notice me?
Last edited by goldenncmom; 12-08-2012 at 09:30 AM..
Page names (this shows up across the menu tab bar):
This is from the meta <title> tag, this is also what is displayed search engines as the link text. This is important if not the most important piece of text. This is where you would use my suggestion above:
Page 1 Home Page Brief description using many keywords as possible - goldenncmom's Anywhere, State
Page 2 About About our involvent in XXX product - goldenncmom's Anywhere, State
Again make sure you have unique titles and meta descriptions for each page. Don't go overboard with there length, if you search for it you'll find some recommended lengths. There is two reasons you want to keep redundant information at the end of titles, the general consensus is the words at the start carry more weight than those at the end and secondly longer sections of text and truncated in search results. This way the redundant stuff gets lopped off if anything.
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Home (this is an introductory paragraph with a Title to introduce the business and our mission)
I don;t know about your software but what I would do is have links to your latest blog posts below this. Try and fill this page up with more information people are seeking instead of burying it.
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Resources (a couple of paragraphs with titles that include links to sites we like or are affiliated with)
Only link to sites that are related to your business.
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ETA: I have sent a message to a lot of my Facebook friends asking them to go to my website and "like" my blog posts so that it shows up in their feed. Hopefully people will do this and it will generate traffic from Facebook to my site. Do you think this will help the search engines notice me?
Again establishing a site in a search engine is not something that happens overnight. I'm assuming this blog is hosted on your own domain? Try and put up as many new articles as possible but of course you'll want to pace yourself so you don't run out of material. Use text links to other blog posts, for example.
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In my previous post I discussed the benefit of Blue Widgets, today I'm going to discuss Red widgets.
You need to have patience to see your results on search engines. It takes minimum 2-3 months when your website is ranked on top search of search engines. But you need to do proper SEO techniques to get results in 2-3 months
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