Guide To Achieving A Successful Website (Revised)

Thanks a lot for the tips. You could have made an ebook an tried selling it on DP, but you just gave it to us straight forward. Isn't that what this forum is supposed to be about anyway?

 

On this post I mentioned about how to buy a domain then in fact I bought http://panelsolar.org/ remmeber:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1615258&postcount=74
Today two weeks after I bought the domain, I'm first for "information on Solar Panels" on both Yahoo and MSN, I just added a tracker at the bottom of the index page so you may check on the next few days.

People who say that SEO is a art are wrong; it is a science.

Happy owner of another good investment!

 

I’ve been going through this thread again, and I’m impressed, we have done something together, congratulations everybody.

One of our brothers asks what is wrong in submitting to search engines.
Lets put it this way, if you have a system to make your site indexed in 2 days and another which takes 6 weeks which one would you choose?

Submitting takes ~6weeks!

Actually I have read so called SEO Guru’s who mention that submitting is contra productive and it can penalize your site. I don’t really know, I’ve never seen prove one way or another.

But no doubt that by submitting you are wasting 6 good weeks.

I liked the post of znitch-search
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1677401&postcount=100

Quote

“we all know that a link from a popular website is worth more than one from a dead site. so, one trick that's worked for me is to have GOOGLE TELL ME what site has the highest PR for any keyword.

THEN narrow it down to ONLY the sites that i can leave a comment on with my very own RELEVANT backlink.

HOW?
GOOGLE query string:
"keyword" AND "post a comment"

Note... you gotta leave a comment that IS relevant AND makes the site owner appreciate you... he can always trash your comment otherwise. Make it worth it for him to keep your comment.”

Very nice tip!

Now last, my dear Ratman50 reading the all thread I came across always when you mention your site you use www.fantasy-pc.com this is a mistake, you should use as much as possible an anchor text, example if your site is about PC Software, you should make it like this:

PC Software

And this anchor text must be chosen carefully by using Overture or Wordtracker.

I’ve noticed you are using as your signature:
Fantasy PC! Forums to talk about anything!

Again what keywords are you targeting, try to be more specific. This signature will take you nowhere with search engines, decide what keywords you are going after and prepare a campaign like if you are going to war!

 

Thanks alot for the list!It will help many ppl out im sure

 

Nice job Visio, and everyone else your welcome.

I am glad this thread is actually going succesfully!

Oh and by the way I just opened a new web directory for free submission if you want please do so!

View it at this thread, you can also get a free green rep for doing so: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=171415

 

Really nice tips. I really love to do

 

really great tips.. thanks

 

Very Useful advice indeed

 

Yup no prob guys!

 

Thanks, Ratman...
I really like this thread, gives a lot of knowledge to me

 

this thread is very helpful. like one of the best threads here in dp. thanks for this really nice tips.

 

Very nice basic tips, if I had the rep to give I would. I do have a suggestion that will help you locate higher PR links for your themed keywords. Before I suggest it I would like to say I am in no way associated or receive any compensation what so ever for recommending this product.

After stating that I like to use SEO Elite to locate relevant high PR links. You can type in any keyword or words and the program will search sites that have those keywords based on PR. You can then either visit those sites and email the webmaster or select an email address that SEO Elite pulls from the site to email the website owner or webmaster.

As for another good Seo trick, I also recommend if you plan on creating a blog for a new site, try to house it on a subdomain of your site. Google treats subdomains as individual domains, so therefore any links pointing from your blog to your primary site will have greater link benefit.

Another good tip is also if you plan on having a link directory within your site place it on a subdomain as well. Since google does treat these as seperate domains, if by some chance you do end up linking with a penalized or ban site, this will not affect your primary site, but if you house the directory on your primary domain it could pass a penalty on to your primary domain for linking to a bad neighbor who is penalized.

Another tip is using a bread crumb menu, now I have no solid proof of this but with each site that I have used a bread crumb menu the site seems to be indexed faster in google than sites I have not used it on.

The last tip I can offer which is one I have found to be very successful for highly competitive keywords. We all know that you should only target no more than two keyword phrases per page.

I have found that when you use a keyword phrase in an opening one or two line sentance and make this an H1 or H2 tag and then write a paragraph or two below it using variations of your keywords in that sentance, the search engines give more weight to your keywords than using H tags with just your keyword phrase in it.

Hope this helps some, I am no expert by any means but I have been successful with a few sites using these simple rules along with some of the other suggestions made in this thread.

 

Great tips. You can also create articles related to your site and submit them to article directories and include your site url on the resource box.

thanks

 

I am surprised he did not mention the use of social sites like Digg, Delicious. BTW great tips.

 

Well, I havent really used those before. I have only submitted to DMOZ. Although I have submitted to over 200 directories.

 

Three days ago I send the url of this thread to a friend, I wanted from her some ideas, today I received from her this contribution. Thanks Sharon.



According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don't know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google but writes an independent blog and shares information related to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately, of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking, there are only a few that webmasters can actually control.
Unless you are a interested in an exercise of futility, it is important to only focus on those ranking factors that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence.
What Search Engine Factors Do Webmasters Control?

Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those items over which the webmaster has the most control are: PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL, and Relevant Links.

How Can a Webmaster Use These Items to Help Ranking?

First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have a descriptive page specific title and description. The title, description, and header tags are channels to communicate the most important details of a specific webpage. They should be used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should make use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent keywords and phrases.
Particular attention should be paid when formatting urls. Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used in the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores between the keywords. Search engines are designed by developers and programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords in the URL should not be abused, as search engines do not appreciate excessively long urls. Avoid using characters like ID= in the URL since many search engines will see it as a unique session ID and not spider the contents of the webpage.
The website's navigation depth should not exceed 3-4 levels. The shallow website depth will make search engines deep crawl easier, ensuring that they will be able to spider the entire content of your website. If you add a new page and wish for it to be spidered quickly, add a link to it from an existing spidered web page.
Domain hostíng and location do matter! A .uk domain and a webhost located in the UK will increase the domains search engine position in any .uk search engine. If you are targeting a specific region or market consider purchasing a local domain.
Obviously you control the websites content; bad content or no content means no incoming links. Good content has the potential to attract good quality unsolicited links.

What Kind of Content Generally Attracts Quality Links?

The idea is to develop quality content that will result in incoming links. Think of JibJab. They portrayed a controversial subject in a humorous way without alienating their audience. While JibJab was able to garner a lot of attention, it's a tricky tight-rope to walk. Consider adding tutorials that explain a specific technology, create a niche directory or a topic specific glossary, post industry news, maintain a blog with fresh content, or write how to articles.
Take advantage of your content. If you write a press release don't just send it to the editors, add it to your website in a press center. Submit the press release to public relations websites. There are a number of press related websites like PRWeb that are really good and all will result in good quality incoming links back to your website. Also add your press release(s) to an RSS feed. Not only will this communicate to your customers that new products or updates are available, but you will also benefit from RSS search engine and directory links.
When you post a release or content that has genuine value, use social bookmarking tools (like digg, del.icio.us, furl) to bookmark the content. These social bookmarking sites are becoming increasingly important in weighing the value of a site. The large search engines do not yet use social bookmarking in their algorithms, but it is quite possible, and highly likely, that they will in the future. If the webpage/content has genuine value, others will social bookmark it as well. The bookmarks are viral and with increasing popularity there is more emphasis placed on content. Additionally, bloggers notoriously skim social bookmarking sites for content to write about which will result in additional links. Keep in mind that in order to bookmark a webpage, it really must have genuine value.
Before we talk more about links, there are a few warnings worth mentioning.

What are the Link Warnings?

The first is to attain links gradually. Search engines prefer links obtained over time rather than links achieved all at once. Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt reciprocal links. They can be time consuming and have very little benefit. Avoid links on the C block. If you own multiple domains, be sure not to triangulate links. Search engines have become wise to this and they prefer a linking scheme that is more like a star (or web).

What Keywords Should You Optimize For?

When determining what keywords to optimize a website for, there are a number of tools that will assess the number of times that a keyword or phrase is searched on, the number of websites/ webpages competing for that keyword or phrase, and rate the phrase. Obviously, the terms that have more searches and less competition are the best to optimize for--if, and only if, they relate to your product or service. If you optimize for terms that are too broad, you will likely increase traffic but decrease your conversions.
It is really a balancing act. Two of the more popular tools available are Keyword Discovery and Word Tracker. Also, talk to friends or family members and ask what phrases they would use to describe your product or service. You might be surprised at the terms they use. Consider optimizing for regional variations. Look at the variety of terms used to describe soda - tonic, pop, soda, soda pop, or cola are all relevant and popular, but only within a specific region. Examine web logs to determine what your users are using, look at the language used in emails and forum posts and consider optimizing specific pages for popular descriptive terms. And finally, use competitive intelligence to locate links and keywords. What are your competitors using? Analyze the adwords they bid on, look at their meta tags, look at their anchor links.
There is a wealth of information out there. No real mystery to it, so use it to your advantage.

About The Author
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage a wireless text messaging software company.

 

I want to add another thing; on the design of your website dont use h1 or h2 for the name of the site/company if the name is not relevant, for example on my web hosting site, http://hosting-marketers.com I use a small graphic on the left upper corner of the page for the name of the company, Hosting Marketers and use h1, h2, h3 etc for the keywords I'm interested in ranking.

Dont waste your H1!

 

Very nice job Viso. I will give you a green rep.

I am glad this thread is becoming very useful, I am learning some things I never had known before.

 

Visio, I really want to thank you. I did the thing you pointed out below and guess what, my new site went online with google within a week, while the last time i got a new site indexed costed me 1 month...thanks a lot!

 

Thank you!