WOT: Search Engine Optimization

[chubrocker]

SORRY for this WOT thread, but I'm seeking out ALL resources to help me out here. I need some help in increasing traffic to one of the services I oversee at the college I work at. Is anyone willing to help? PM me and maybe we can communicate via email???

 

Here's my issue: I oversee the director of our high-ropes course. We do teambuilding in the KC area. We have the best staff and challenge course. We blow everyone out of the water on every level. Last year we had 7,000 people on our course. But, we have a former employee who started his own business and is trying to steal our customers. Plus, we just need to generate more revenue and traffic to our course. Our website always showed up 1-7 on any search. As of the last 6-9 months, we are non-existent now on any search. I asked our IT dept. if our site was listed with the search engines. They said "yes"---WRONG! I searched dmoz.org and we did not come up. I registered there on Monday. Our former emp has paid for top listing on every page. Not sure we have the budget to do that---not sure how he has the budget either. I'm new to internet marketing par se, so really needing some help in how to improve traffic to our site via web searches. Virtually all traffic to our site is via direct mail pieces telling them to come to our site.

[chunky-b]

I am kind of new to "Search Engine Optimization" but the company I work for has a department that does just that. We have a Director of SEO and other weird sounding titles. Apparently all search engines sell out their listings now and there are companies and services who help (for a fee). Also it is getting very specialized at codeing META and ID tags into web pages so they get recognized and categorized properly...

[HackedByChinese!]

What's your site?

[fmw]

I do e-commerce for a living. It is really hard to do what you want to do today. It was hard enough 10 years ago when we did it. What it required is getting links to your site from other sites. That is the key to Google listings. Yahoo works a little differently but still puts emphasis on external links. The other search engines don't really matter in the overall scheme of things. You need to start emailing or calling people to trade links. You will likely need thousands of them to put a dent in effort. We developed about 30,000 links from other sites to our main site about 10 years ago and we continue live off of that.

 

In my experience it is virtually impossible to make internet advertising produce profitable sales. Only about 15% of consumers shop on line but the ad rates are aimed at 100%. The math doesn't work but they sell it because, even today, people don't know any better. We do zero advertising on the internet. We get about 3500 new sessions opened with our home page daily. There are companies that will develop the external links for you but it isn't cheap.

 

There are 10's of millions of web sites and most of them are a waste of people's time. Now you know the reason.

[t3ch]

First, you find a copy of dictionary.txt....

[y-o-y]

I did some research on this a couple of years ago and in the end determined that any significant improvements in search engine rank come with a relatively significant price tag.

 

some of my research is certainly outdated now, but from what I recall, fmw is dead on with regard to the "links to" your site from other sites as an important factor in Google's ranking. Furthermore, the text of the link should be as close to the desired high rank search term as you can get...i.e. if you are trying to optimize the company name, the text of external links to your site should be the company name and not things like "click here". Along the same lines, the higher the rank of the sites that are linking to you the more weight that carries in your page rank.

 

Also, text in meta tags is treated exactly the same as readable text on the page. do a search on keyword density and keyword proximity to get some information on other important SEO factors.

 

There is a lot of information out there on SEO, and also some tools that will help optimize your web content for search as well as lots of firms that can be hired to help out as well...

[collinwho]

My opinion is somewhat dissenting. Although incoming links is very important, 30,000 is unnecessary, and if the pages they are coming from aren't relevant, they might even appear as spam (which google frowns upon). The key to SEO/SEM with google and yahoo is these three things:

 

1. Incoming links. Focus on quality, not quantity. Your website is for teambuilding, find online teambuilding resources and request links from them. Look for links from you local Chamber of Commerce. Try and have any agencies that may license your business to link to you as well. Etc. Etc. Etc. Basically, the more relevant a linking site, the better effect it will have on your ranking.

 

2. Optimize your content. Yes meta tages and ids are important, but not as important as having a well worded h1 on your homepage. Include geo and search terms (For example: Kansas City Ropes Course and Team Building Resources). Don't label everything as an h1 or otherwise try and trick the search engines. Do use the available text formatting (h1, h2, p, etc) to organize the content on your site.

 

3. Create a geographic focus. Add a footer to your site "We serve companies and groups coming from Kansas City, Lawrence, St Joseph, etc, etc". Don't run on and list every city you have ever heard of, or it starts to look like spam to the search engines.

 

 

Edit to add:

Also, don't underestimate the benefit of fluid content (such as a blog). An active site that is regularly updated is likely to receive a higher ranking.

[chubrocker]

What's your site?

 

www.tuckerleadership.org

 

The layout is about to get changed. The new template will be ready on Monday.

[DJMC]

 

My opinion is somewhat dissenting. Although incoming links is very important, 30,000 is unnecessary, and if the pages they are coming from aren't relevant, they might even appear as spam (which google frowns upon). The key to SEO/SEM with google and yahoo is these three things: 1. Incoming links. Focus on quality, not quantity. Your website is for teambuilding, find online teambuilding resources and request links from them. Look for links from you local Chamber of Commerce. Try and have any agencies that may license your business to link to you as well. Etc. Etc. Etc. Basically, the more relevant a linking site, the better effect it will have on your ranking. 2. Optimize your content. Yes meta tages and ids are important, but not as important as having a well worded h1 on your homepage. Include geo and search terms (For example: Kansas City Ropes Course and Team Building Resources). Don't label everything as an h1 or otherwise try and trick the search engines. Do use the available text formatting (h1, h2, p, etc) to organize the content on your site. 3. Create a geographic focus. Add a footer to your site "We serve companies and groups coming from Kansas City, Lawrence, St Joseph, etc, etc". Don't run on and list every city you have ever heard of, or it starts to look like spam to the search engines. Also, don't underestimate the benefit of fluid content (such as a blog). An active site that is regularly updated is likely to receive a higher ranking.

 

 

This is all excellent advice.....I've been doing MOST of the above and it's all paying off.

 

RE #3: you need to establish separate Geographic Listings at Google Maps & Yahoo Local. Sign up for Yelp and get your band reviewed by one of your regular customers. Most bar owners now have Yelp accounts and will probably help you out if you're gigging regularly at that establishment.

[chunky-b]

 

[DJMC]

thanks Chunky......would you rather I start a new thread?

 

I'm always looking for good SEO ideas. I've pretty much exhausted all the good ideas at the Disc Jockey forums......I'm now searching the Musician and Band forums for other good suggestions.

 

Some forums "Lock" the old threads or they put them into "Archives"

[Goofball Jones]

thanks Chunky......would you rather I start a new thread? I'm always looking for good SEO ideas. I've pretty much exhausted all the good ideas at the Disc Jockey forums......I'm now searching the Musician and Band forums for other good suggestions. Some forums "Lock" the old threads or they put them into "Archives"

 

You'll find this forum is VERY strict and must be totally "on-topic". We only discuss basses here and basses only.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, never trust someone with a name like "Goofball"

:lol:

[bluedogaudio]

http://www.seomoz.org/

[jessicarobin]

Create a blog - Creating content on a consistent basis not only builds links internally (by linking out from your posts), but also gives you the ability to naturally attract links to your content. A blog is essential to many strategies I list below, such as linking out. You absolutely need a blog in today's online environment to survive.

 

Create an RSS feed - If your blog is run on any of the popular Content Management Systems, you'll already have an RSS feed. If you don't, create one. If you do, burn it at Feedburner.com so you can get statistics on your subscribers. For link building, it's simple. There are sites out there that will scrape your content (stealing it without permission). When they do, make sure you get a link back by 1) including links to other pages on your site in your posts and 2) installing the RSS footer plug-in for Word Press (adds a link to your blog after every post).

 

Resources/Links pages - Other webmasters have created links or resource pages, and these are legitimate opportunities to get links. If the links on that page are relevant, you've got a chance. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just asking for a link. I'll go into specific strategies below that help you get webmasters liking you before you ask, because doing that greatly increases your chances of getting a link.

 

Get people to see your content - People won't link to your content unless they see it. At the same time, you need the right people in front of your content not everyone is a potential linker. This is where social media, content marketing, and brand awareness comes into the link building realm. Getting people to see and know your content & brand is a massively important strategy to build links. Below I'll go into specific strategies to make this happen.