Hello, I'm new on this forum and I really need some help. I'm trying to get my website www.select-limo.com on the first page in various search engines, like google, yahoo and msn with different keywords, like chicago limo, chicago limousine service etc. My website shows on the first page in yahoo and msn with "chicago hummer limo" keyword, I wish it would be the same in google too and also with other keywords. I appreciate the time you'd take to help me improve my website. Thank you!
i must say when it comes to ranking in google it will take quite some time due to lots of competitors wanting to be in the first position just continue with what you are doing...
LOL. Me too!! Seriously Gabette the best way to build rank on Google is BACKLINKS with your targeted KW in the anchor text, Google wants to see relevance of the KW you are targeting and best way to get that is by building backlinks with those KW in anchors, BUILD BUILD BUILD! Here are some very helful guides to BACKLINKS that will help you: http://hubpages.com/hub/Increase-Web-Site-Traffic http://courtneytuttle.com/category/link-building/
Thx. for the info, but the thing I don't really understand is what do you mean by building backlinks? Should I start writing blogs or what? And writing articles about limos is not easy, what should I write about? Like, let's say "Two nights ago a girl got naked in a Chicago limo rented from www.select-limo.com?
Okay Basically "backlinks" are links that guide readers back to your website. When other sites link their pages to yours then that's a BACKLINK! When Google crawls the web and sees links to your site from other sites (especially quality sites, like article directories) with anchor text of your targeted KW, Google associates your site with that KW and the more backlinks you have the more your site pages climb in ranks. For example let's say one of your good KW is "cheap limo services" that is the anchor text for your link, here is how that looks like in code: <a href="www.select-limo.com">Cheap Limo Service</a> SEE? This way Google will associate your site with that KW anchor--"Cheap Limo Service" and any and all other KW you choose for the anchor text! Now you leave this link with your articles and in web directories and you have backlinks to your site! NUTSHELL: ARTICLES = BACKLINKS = HIGH SEARCH PAGE RANKS = INCREASE IN WEB SITE TRAFFIC FOR YOU! Now that is true that articles maybe harder to write for your niche, BUT you can write How-to/Tips regarding limo service, for example: How to screen a limo company Tips to finding the best limo service What should a limo service provide its clients The benefits of using a limo service How to avoid getting ripped off by a limo service Best practices for limo services Best places to ride to in a limo etc....you know your niche, you can make all kinds of topics related to rental of limos. People love short and sweet tips and how-to articles you don't have to write a novel just at least 400 words. (read this http://hubpages.com/hub/Increase-Web-Site-Traffic again and it explains how to use the relevant KW for those articles in titles of articles and how to utilize those KW for articles to drive targeted traffic to your site. Now the point is that when you write these articles you get to leave a link to your site either in the resource box or in the "about author box" and THAT IS WHERE you leave a back link with anchor text. The more of these you have the more Google will relate your site with those KW in anchors and you will climb in the serps for those KW. Make Sense? You can submit articles manually to several high ranking sites: www.ezinearticles.com http://www.goArticles.com http://www.articledashboard.com http://www.articlealley.com http://www.iSnare.com Costs $10 for 5 articles http://www.thefreelibrary.com Make sure you read the submission guidelines for all these sites because they are strict and if you mess up you could get banned. With those sites you have to go to each site and submit manually each article one by one and it can take a long time. I use an automatic article submission service which has professional reviews and editors and also submits to 5,000+ sites and 60,000 thousand publishers with one button submission: http://www.articlemarketer.com/8127.html If you want to save half off the regular price go to "Todays Special Tab" on their site. Does that make sense? Believe me link building is crucial in page ranks! Let me know if you have any other questions.
It's really hard to achieve 1st page in Google, I got some of my keywords there with the help of building good quality back links and avoiding anything black hat
Back Links are the links on other sites which points to your site. You need to build lots of back links in order to rank well in search results. You can write a article, then you can submit it to different article directories. With each article you will get 2-3 backlinks for your site.
Keep at it gabete! Keep watching and trying - It took me 18 monhs hard graft on and off to get a new site up to PR6 and a few page one positions for a few minor terms. The money terms are still to come for me!
I wrote my first article today and it got declined because I didn't leave blank spaces between the paragraphs But I modified it, hopefully it will get approved.
Don't worry that happens! Experience in submitting also comes with every submission you make and it will get easier, and soon you will be an expert!
Gabette, Remember to always read the submission guidelines for article sites BEFORE you submit! especially ezine!
I'd start by correcting a few things on the Web server your site is hosted on. Using mod_rewrite to force a 301 redirect from http://select-limo.com http://select-limo.com/index.php and http://www.select-limo.com/index.php to http://www.select-limo.com will eliminate some duplicate content issues you're having (which is dragging you down in the search listings). After that, I'd again use mod_rewrite to remap your URLs so that they're search engine friendly and more descriptive (such as changing http://www.select-limo.com/index.php?id_pag=4 to http://www.select-limo.com/services/chicago-weddings/ for example) and direct the old links to the newly remapped ones so the search engines don't consider them to be new pages. From there I'd set up a robots.txt file to restrict search engine spider access to the sections of the Web site you do not want them poking around (this is preferable to using a noindex, nofollow META tag since it prevents them from even accessing the pages you don't want them going to, thereby saving you bandwidth and server resources) and then include an auto-discovery directive in the robots.txt file so that the search engine spiders can go directly to your sitemap.xml file (which will be rewritten to properly show the current and correct URLs to your public facing Web pages). Once those are taken care of, I'd look at re-coding the HTML and CSS, making them validate while using clean, minimal and semantic structural markup with the HTML, CSS and JavaScript code in separate files (yes, I know you're using PHP, but it generates HTML which is what the search engines see). Once I have the structure down-pat, I'd be able to get started on the next part. And that is removing THIS GARBAGE: (Yes, I replaced the actual URL with a sample one.) Having such links at the bottom of your Web pages violates the search engines' terms of use, and can get your site banned from their indexes faster than Wrigley Field sells out whenever the Cubs have a home game (too bad they had to lose last night - Carlos Zambrano's performance was nothing short of stellar). Once everything that violates the search engines' terms of use are removed (and any necessary reinclusion requests are filed should you find your site has been banned), I'd focus on the competitive keywords analysis. I'd need to know what you want to rank well for, what people here in the Chicagoland area (I live in Aurora) and the city proper are searching for and then write the Web copy (yes, Web copy - page copy that is written on Web pages for the sole purpose of selling a product, service, or idea) to target them and also make them want to "click that link" to your Web site, and then engage them with compelling copy that will make them forget about the competition and buy straight from you and you alone. I'd also check out your competitiors' sites as well to see what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, and also search for targets of opportunity that I'd be able to use against them (as the old saying goes, play to your strengths and exploit your opponents' weaknesses to your own advantage for maximum gain). I'd see who they're linking to, who's linking to them, and then do the same with your site to gain a solid understanding of the Chicago limousine industry (I've never had a need for a limo before, so I never went looking). Once the site gets cleaned up and polished, I'd start looking for quality relevant places to promote the site. PPC may be an option, as would targeted and focused initial directory submissions (the value of most directories is actually pretty limited, and forum signatures aren't that great either unless you're targeting the forums that will be using your services and you become a respected member of the communities you join), but I'd primarily be looking at trade publications and other industry resources for your quality inbound links (of course I'd also liberally yet appropriately link your pages internally to help the search engiens and people at the same time for what's effectively a win-win situation). Granted, this isn't what I'd consider to be a comprehensive checklist of what I'd do if I were you, but it does touch upon the major issues. If you're interested in doing this yourself, I can give you some quality (and not just good, but world-beating and exceptional) resources to help get you started. If you feel you'd be better having someone else handle it for you, I'm just a private message away (we can even talk on the phone if you like). (For the record, I'm a Web developer with over five years experience by trade - it's no coincidence that I know more about SEO than a lot of people who "think" they "know" it, despite my treatment of search engine optimization as a hobby. In addition to being an Advisor on the SitePoint forums I help moderate the SEO.com forums in my spare time and am also writing a comprehensive search engine optimization guide for Web designers and developers so they can in turn offer SEO services to their own clients.) I hope my post was able to help.
Create tonnes of backlinks with your ANCHOR TEXT being the words you want to optimise. i.e chicago limo, chicago limousine service That'll help dramatically if the links are good quality. You also could have done better off with a domain more relevant to the niche you're targetting.
Given that he's on the verge of being banned from all the major search engines, I doubt to see how that's going to help him, especially when his site's structure and content haven't even been optimized to begin with. As for the domain name, it's really not that big of a deal; if I didn't know better, he chose it for branding (his company name) rather than SEO services, which given that he's selling a service in the competitive Chicago market, can actually prove to be a huge benefit (if not an outright windfall) instead of a liability.
I agree fully with Dan. The first thing to go has to be the pointless watch link!!!!!!!!!!! The serps for chicago limo terms are in the 2 million range. That's not really a tall order for something of that scope. Most of the sites I looked at other than yours are a bit of a trainwreck as well, certainly from a visual standpoint. I caught a few that look ok and have decent markup but as a general rule that whole demographic looks to be a bit of a mess. Clearly you need to start with some proper semantic markup though(like some headers and some css). There is nothing for Google to sink its teeth into. hope that helps.. I am happy to answer questions. If done properly, you should be able to move up in the serps fairly quickly. It will take some effort though. For reference.... the last time I tackled a 2 million page demographic it took about 4 or 5 months. Nigel
He's referring to the H1-H6 heading elements. (By the way, did you get my email I sent on Monday night?)