Search Engine / Keyword

[Machiavelli]

A couple of days ago I published my site and have added keywords to the pages.

A few questions (some probably stupid) about search engines and keywords.

I read somewhere about 'registering' with search engines. I thought that once published search engine 'spiders' would in time find the site and start to show it in the results. Is this right or do I need to do something?

Can you add keywords to the forum page to help this page get found, or does it rely on links from my other pages?

You can check my keywords if you like and let me know what you think. I have gone for some longer strings as the shorter ones are more general and more competitive.

The site is www.myworldsouthamerica.com

[Bethers]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Your keywords meta is incorrect - if you want the se's to find you by those keywords - why are they not important enough to be on the page? The only keywords that should be in the meta keywords should be on THAT page. Your description should be slightly more specific and using the phrase that people will use to search for you -how about something like "A complete South American travel information online community including travel info for Peru and Brazil from My World South America"

Do you see the difference?

And maybe a title on the page "Online South American Travel Information"

And then ON the page - get rid of "Welcome to My World South America" and get a headline in there - again with your keywords - preferable in an h1 tag (an h1 tag denotes that it's a headline - you have to use the html box to put this in). Your headline could be:
<center><h1><font size=4>South America Travel | Vacation | Gap Year Information</font></h1></center>

You could do a subtitle including cities if you'd like.

You have very little text for the search engines to use on the page to find important - you need to have the links to internal pages use the important keyword text. How about the link to the forum be called the "South America Travel Forum".
then, Plan your trip using our "Resources for traveling South America"
and "Get your South America articles published.
and how about share your vacation travel photos.

Now in all of those - the entire important words should be the link - ie "vacation travel photos" not just photos.

Add a footer to the page - with mention of the major cities and countries in maybe a manner like this:

"My World South America covers travel information for vacations and gap travel including all major South America destinations, including Peru, Brazil - etc etc.

As to whether the se's will find you - Google has already indexed your home page. But without you doing some, if not all, of the tweaking I just suggested - they may never get you onto top pages in searches.

Links to your site need to be using your key words.

All your pages need to be optimized for that specific page. The resource page - rarely uses any keywords that will get people or se's find that page. When I get to that page, I don't have a clue what these resources are or why I need or would want them. You text is about you - and needs to be about your viewer in action words that catch their attention.

How about South America Travel Resources for the headline (and page title) - I mean make every word count and make sure people who land on this page first know where they are and why.

Then think about something like this for a first paragraph:
Traveling South America should be just what you want it to be. Use of these resources will help make your trip the dream vacation that you've been wanting.

Follow these 5 easy steps and you're on the way to your South American trip of a lifetime:

1. Getting There: Low Cost Air to South America Countries and Cities
2. What to Do: How about a Volunteer Vacation?
3. Learning Spanish: The Language of South America
4. Be Informed: Be a knowlegeable Latin America traveler
5. Place to Stay, Sites to See: See the best of South America | Latin America on you budget.

There I'm using your keywords (and realized that Latin America also needs to be used) and hopefully getting the people interested to want to go further onto the page.

Okies, I've written too much - but you need to optimize each page for your customers - you've got good bones here - but some tweaking is really necessary.

After you do some tweaking, I suggest you submit the website to Voda to be submitted to all the se's. No, it's not necessary - but since you don't have a lot of links back to you at this time - it could help jump start your being found sooner.

You also need to have a title with the major keyword phrase on the page.

[Machiavelli]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Thanks a lot for this reply. I will go through everything and make some changes.

[j_enriquez]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Good morning, Ms. Bethers.

Can you give some advices about how the search engine works in able for searchers search my site on the web? Thank you so much..

This is my site: http://www.mutyapublishing.com

I put meta on the index page such as: mutya, books, science, publishing house, filipino, computer, batayan at sanayang-aklat, english

Thanks again,
Jayson

[Bethers]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Jayson,

The two most glaring problems I see are your current title and your lack of a meta description. Your title is no good unless your name is a household word that everyone will be searching for. You need the words they will be searching for in the title - and you need to research that. So, if the are searching for filipino books and that's your major thrust - then Filipino books from Mutya Publishing would be a better title. Or Filipino, computer, science books - Mutya Publishing - if that's more likely.

Then, write a short description of your site including the keywords again - and that will be your meta description - which is very important.

Make sure that the things that you have that people will search for - are talked about on your pages. And remember - you don't need to put it all on the home page - use various pages to optimize for different terms/phrases.

[j_enriquez]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Wow, it would a great help to me! Thank you so much, Bethers!

God Speed and Thanks again..

Regards,
Jayson

[j_enriquez]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Ms. Bethers, after I did those advices, is my site now searchable in the web? How long does it take to see my site in some search engines?

Thanks,
Jayson

[Bethers]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Jayson,

On some terms it can be fairly quick - but don't expect anything overnight. It depends on how much competition there is for your keywords and how much better your site is optimized (on site and off) compared to the others vying for the same words.

[j_enriquez]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Wow, thank you so much..

Regards,
Jayson "Es0n™"

[centurions]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Can someone please help me regarding keywords and search engines?

I'm sure I've followed the tutorial properly, but my website does not appear on any search engines when I use the keywords I thought I'd entered.

My website is www.sacenturions.co.uk and any advice would be much appreciated.

PS - I asked Bluevoda to help on this, and they said it wasn't a technical issue so I need to use the forum, which is the first time I've found either them or their system to be a bit of a let down.

Cheers

[Dori]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

centurions... please don't think that just because BV Support sent you to the forum that they aren't great. The reason they sent you here is because of all the information you can learn from the tutorials and from the great folks that are on this forum. They are correct in saying that your problem is not a technical issue, it is a design issue. Read what Bethers has read in this post and follow it. You do not have any keywords, titles or descriptions in your meta tags and you need them.

You can also check out the other sections of the forum and find information on pretty much anything you need.

I can tell you that I have used other hosts and web builder programs and by far Blue Voda is the best!

[Bethers]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

To further what Dori just said - it's not up to VH as a hosting company to give most of the wonderful advice they provide. And they aren't in the business of optimizing websites. But they've given us this great forum where we can each get some of this information.

Now, as to your website, if you read the above, you should have gotten some clues that your page needs lots of work. You haven't even titled the pages - and putting keywords into the meta will not get you found by them - you need to use the keywords in the necessary places (titles, headlines, text on the pages). A headline like yours currently (Welcome to our new website) doesn't have any keywords and is useless to you.

[crouquet]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Hi Bethers!

Arrghh!!! Just when I thought I was getting there I'm all confused!
Was just about to submit to search engines and was having a read through these posts - I know I have to re-do the meta tags as I haven't done them specifically to each page.
It would appear to me that I don't have a headline.(Is that different to the title?)How do I get it in? Would it be better to repeat "holiday cottages in the Dordogne" as a headline on every page as some pages don't have a ref to the area. Also should the titles always be something that people would type in?

Some people have also said my website is too big with too much info. I thought this was a good thing both in terms of selling ourselves and getting found on search engines - I feel I don't know nearly enough about all this and am beginning to panic!

I really need to get this right as we're late already for this season's bookings. Would be eternally grateful if you could cast an eye & point me in the right direction before I waste a lot of time submitting the wrong thing.
Thanks in advance for any help!!
Crouquet 99232298
www.lescrouquets.net

[Dori]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Hi Bethers!

Arrghh!!! Just when I thought I was getting there I'm all confused!
Was just about to submit to search engines and was having a read through these posts - I know I have to re-do the meta tags as I haven't done them specifically to each page.
It would appear to me that I don't have a headline.(Is that different to the title?)How do I get it in? Would it be better to repeat "holiday cottages in the Dordogne" as a headline on every page as some pages don't have a ref to the area. Also should the titles always be something that people would type in?

Some people have also said my website is too big with too much info. I thought this was a good thing both in terms of selling ourselves and getting found on search engines - I feel I don't know nearly enough about all this and am beginning to panic!

I really need to get this right as we're late already for this season's bookings. Would be eternally grateful if you could cast an eye & point me in the right direction before I waste a lot of time submitting the wrong thing.
Thanks in advance for any help!!
Crouquet 99232298
www.lescrouquets.net

Too long... I don't think so. My site will be even bigger and from what I understand the search engines like content... especially if you add new content. I believe this is why having a blog on your site is pretty popular right now. I believe that if a customer enjoys your site and there is a lot of information, they will either stay longer or come back frequently. This is important. The content of your site does need to be easily navigable though. If it doesn't flow you will have problems. With your site, it looks like it is easy enough to find what your customer is looking for.

I'll let Bethers or someone else speak to your other questions.

[Bethers]

Re: Search Engine / Keyword

Crouquet -
I don't have time to study your site tonight, but if you email me with the request to:
beth at moxie-enter-prises.com - I promise I'll take a look at it.

There is no such thing as too much information - if it's good info - however it can be too much for certain pages, etc.

Quick for titles and headlines - they need to be different on each page - or you are making your pages compete with each other. And hopefully the pages aren't about the same identical information? Each should have it's own identity.

Dori gave lots of good advice up there.