Website search results - baby steps please

Theresa · Sep 27, 2006

:ylinfant: Hi all, I just searched my webpage and my listing was not in the top 50. I have been reading with interest the many helpful tips for maximizing searches, but am a bit overwhelmed. Can someone please list the steps I should take to ensure a good search placement for my website?

This is what I have done so far:

I recently added meta tags, keywords and descriptions, (I lost them when I redesigned my site), and did a quick search of keywords...thanks mlou for the links...still working on this.

What is the google map?

I do have Adsense with Google, but that didn't help my listing either.
this site seems to be everywhere though: http://www.find-florist-shop.com/, so how do I get listed with it, or should I not be associated with it?

I am not a member of any WS.

Baby steps would be appreciated! Thanks again!

:ylinfant:

CHR · Sep 27, 2006

Theresa -

Without product prices and a linked shopping cart, your money is not well spent on pay-per-clicks.

Couple things I noticed right away - the physical address, local phone number and business hours of your company are all missing. The About Us page doesn't give a potential new customer a level of confidence about your store, your experience, your specialties or your services.

Put yourself in the position of a new user. Would you trust your order to a company that provided so little information about itself?

From a technical standpoint, many of the pages are graphic images and lack meaningful 'on page' information for search engines. Instead of seeing the cities in your delivery area, search engines see *nothing* there. You may be able to add alt text but it's nowhere near as effective as on page words.

It's good you've got a site up and running but you'll need more relevant content and (links to your site from others) to help both search engines and users.

HTH

mlou · Sep 27, 2006

Ok, baby steps...

First, you have a good starting point...

Remember, search engine robots (spiders) read top to bottom...left to right.

We need to re-coding your <head>...you have that information in the middle of your website <body>. Most websites have two parts...<head> and <body>

Here is your coding...notice I only copied the top part, not the whole page...

<STYLE type="text/css">

</STYLE>

<BODY bgcolor="ffffee">

<CENTER>
<BR><BR>

<title>Blooming Flowers Florist, buy flowers online at #1 Blooming Flowers flower shop in Amanda for delivery, guaranteed</title>
<meta name="description: content="Fresh beautiful flowers delivered aby Blooming Flowers Florist. Our flower shop delivers to Amanda OH, Lancaster OH, Canal Winchester OH, Stoutsville OH, Circleville OH, Lithopolis OH with extended delivery to Carmel East Hospital OH.
We offer free delivery to local funeral homes, churches, nursing homes and hospitals. 43102>
<meta name="keywords" content="Blooming Flowers Florist, flowers online, flower shop, flower delivery to to Amanda OH, Lancaster OH, Canal Winchester OH, Stoutsville OH, Circleville OH, Lithopolis OH, Ashville OH, with extended delivery to Carmel East Hospital OH.
We offer free delivery to local funeral homes, churches, nursing homes and hospitals. 43102>

<TABLE bgcolor="ffffee" bordercolor="white" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<BODY bgcolor="white" text="#003366" vlink="black" link="black">
<TR>
<TD>        </TD>
<TD COLSPAN="2" bgcolor="ffffee">

This same coding should read...Notice I added two quote marks, one at the end of "keywords tag" and the other at the end of "description tag". I also removed the colon after "description: content=" and replaced it with a quote mark

<html>
<head>
<title>Blooming Flowers Florist, buy flowers online at #1 Blooming Flowers flower shop in Amanda for delivery, guaranteed</title>
<meta name="description" content="Fresh beautiful flowers delivered aby Blooming Flowers Florist. Our flower shop delivers to Amanda OH, Lancaster OH, Canal Winchester OH, Stoutsville OH, Circleville OH, Lithopolis OH with extended delivery to Carmel East Hospital OH.
We offer free delivery to local funeral homes, churches, nursing homes and hospitals. 43102">
<meta name="keywords" content="Blooming Flowers Florist, flowers online, flower shop, flower delivery to to Amanda OH, Lancaster OH, Canal Winchester OH, Stoutsville OH, Circleville OH, Lithopolis OH, Ashville OH, with extended delivery to Carmel East Hospital OH.
We offer free delivery to local funeral homes, churches, nursing homes and hospitals. 43102">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<STYLE type="text/css">

</STYLE>

</head>
<body>
<BODY bgcolor="ffffee">

<CENTER>
<BR><BR>
<TABLE bgcolor="ffffee" bordercolor="white" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<BODY bgcolor="white" text="#003366" vlink="black" link="black">
<TR>
<TD>        </TD>
<TD COLSPAN="2" bgcolor="ffffee">

.

mlou · Sep 27, 2006

Next step...

Most of you use Microsoft Internet Explorer as one of your browsers...

Let's do an experiment to help you understand Cathy's post about content...

Open Microsoft Internet Explorer
Click on Tools (first set of links below blue title line at the top of the browser)
find the dropdown menu
click on internet options
click on Advanced (far right in top row tabs)
slide the right hand side bar down alittle more than half way, you are looking for the Multimedia heading on the left side of the chart
find the listing Show pictures
click on the check mark in the box on the left side of Show pictures (this should uncheck Show pictures)
now click on Apply in the lower right hand corner
then click on OK (this should close the screen)

You may still have pictures on the browser screen, but as you click on the next url...ALL pictures will be removed.

Now you are ready for the "real" experiment #1...
Click on Thersa's url (You might need to cut and paste the url into Microsoft Internet Explorer)

http://www.bloomingflowers.net/index.htm

What a difference a picture makes...This stripped down version is closer to what the search engine robots (spiders) see since they don't read pictures or javascript.

Not much information here for the search engines to index...

Here's what the spider reads:
Spidered Text :
Blooming Flowers Florist, buy flowers online at #1 Blooming Flowers flower shop in Amanda for delivery, guaranteed | Customer Service | Toll Free 1-888-401-SEND | Home Celebrations Get Well Holiday Sympathy Roses Seasonal Weddings Congratulations Just Because New Baby Romance Birthday Any Day Guarantee Delivery | Quick Order | Guarantee | About Us | Delivery | Member Login |

Notice "Blooming Flowers Florist, buy flowers online at #1 Blooming Flowers flower shop in Amanda for delivery, guaranteed" comes from her title...the spider couldn't read her "description tag" because she has a coding error which I showed her in the eariler post.

OK, Thersa...time to decide which consumers you are trying to reach and what they would search to find you. Think like the consumer not the florist...that information needs to be added to this page.

experiment #2
Do a search for this information in Google...
See what information your competition is using to reach your consumer base.
This should add lots of food for thought.

Now to reverse your Microsoft Internet Explorer back to showing pictures...
click on tools
click on internet options
click of Advanced
slide down to the Multimedia heading
click on the box to the left of Show pictures (this should put the check mark in the box)
click on Apply
click on OK
Remember, the screen may not have pictures, but should show the pictures when you click on the next url...

Theresa · Sep 29, 2006

made some changes, here are the results

Hi, thanks for the input!

Corrected the programming error on the meta tags...thanks Mary Lou!

Did a new search on Yahoo and Google, here are the results:

moved up to position 31 on google, and still not in the top 50 for yahoo, although they list me first as a local...hurray! Great improvement from nowhere...to at least somewhere, with very little effort.

Thanks for the tips, and I will be working on content.

Got some surprising results when I searched just my url...which gave me results of some old stuff that is still on the server...yuck, and need to delete it.

To improve my website listing with Google, I will also...between bucket scrubbings and laundry, etc...be working on the advice their adsense team sent:

If you have questions about your site's listing in Google, I'd recommend visiting http://www.google.com/support/webmasters. I also wanted to let you know that our advertising programs are independent of our search results. Participation in AdWords and AdSense doesn't affect inclusion or ranking in the Google search index.

I've also included answers to some of the most common questions AdSense publishers have asked.

How do I add my site to Google's search results?
Answer: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34397&hl=en_US

My site is no longer included in the search results. What happened?
Answer: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34443&hl=en_US

How can I improve my site's ranking?
Answer: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34432&hl=en_US

Why doesn't my site show up for a specific keyword?
Answer: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34434&hl=en_US

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
___________________________

Also, I have been wondering for some time how to support this wonderful flowerchat forum and came across an obscure thread to sign up for ilocalflorist. A bargain at about $4/per month. www.ilocalflorist.com
Again, thanks!!!

specialoccasion · Sep 29, 2006

Good work Mary Lou...

mlou · Sep 30, 2006

Theresa said:
...Also, I have been wondering for some time how to support this wonderful flowerchat forum and came across an obscure thread to sign up for ilocalflorist. A bargain at about $4/per month. www.ilocalflorist.com
Again, thanks!!!

Thanks for the plug...

So you are ready for the next step...

Sorry, this one is a giant step, but let's see if we can break it down into pieces...

Website Content (also called body text) affects your website placement in the search engines...

Let's start learning about content by learning some do's and don'ts

Most search engines rank pages by the do's

Page Title - keyword placement in the <TITLE> tag;
Keyword Density - How often your keywords appear in the body text...A good keyword density is 3-7%
Keyword Placement - Keywords appearing near the beginning of the page receive more weight;
Image ALT tags - Image <ALT> tags are an important placement for keywords;
Header tags - <h1>, <h2> - many search engine spiders look for keywords within these tags and rate them at a premium;
Link Popularity - Is your site linked from other popular pages about the same subject?
Update Frequency - current, up to date content leads to higher placement.
Robot Instructions - use the "robots" meta tag as well as the robots.txt file in your domain root to instruct spiders how to crawl your site.

Most search engines penalize your pages by the don'ts

Flash based pages - Currently, search engine spiders are unable to follow links in Flash animations.
Excessive javascript - javascript code makes your website easy to navigate, but it inflates the HTML code of your website and dilute keyword value. Search engines can't follow links written in javascript code.
Parameters in URL - dynamic page content (php using "cgi" pages with parameters in the URL) will have trouble being indexed by search engines. Google indexes most cgi pages now, but it stays away from pages with an "id" parameter.
irrelevant keywords, hidden text, misleading descriptions - These methods to trick search engines often lead to the website being banned.
Fake or irrelevant links from other sites - Stay away from "link farms," webrings, or making 100's of additions to address books. These lead to websites being banned.

Here is information from Content http://www.flowerchat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2662&page=2&highlight=summertime

"Robots (search engine spiders) can't read your images and can't see how pretty your web site is. Robots (spiders) read text and code...Period...The robots (spiders) feed on text and they love keyword phrases. If you want high search engine placement, give the robots (spiders) what they want!

Try to use 250 words (or more) of text per web page.
Targeting 2 to 3 keyword phrases (no more) per web page is usually a good idea.
Keep it relevant!
Make sure each targeted keyword phrase is relevant to the rest of the content.
Your viewers should find your keyword phrases unintrusive to the flow of content.
NEVER spam your web site content by stuffing it with keywords.
Use keyword phrases in your first paragraph.
(HINT: The first 25 words of your web site content weigh heavier with the search engines.)
Disperse your keyword phrases throughout your entire web page and again at the bottom of the page.
Replace generic terms with your keyword phrases.
(Example: use "florist services" instead of "our services".)

Discover the secrets of successful Internet writers:
Catch-and keep-the attention of Web visitors
Write meaningful links, headings, and menus
Organize informative objects for personalization
Create customer assistance that really helps
Entertain people who like to read
Provoke active discussion
Share online research
Adjust your prose for mobile users"

Now that I have put you to sleep with the general content information...

I'll try to post detail content suggests tommrow...

.

mlou · Oct 3, 2006

Keyword searches will be the reason people discover your website. It's important that your web page provide as many opportunities to be included in those search results as possible.

Here's how we can do this...
Each section of your web page carries a different weight in the overall ranking process.

In my opinion, the search engine places more weight to keywords in your title, description, left side navigation (top to bottom), first paragraph, footer and main body text of your web page and in that order:..

Let's classify your Content text into 3 parts...and cover them one at a time.
Page title text
Main text
Alt text

Part 1 - page title text
The page title text will be seen in the blue bar at the top of your browser, it's also known as 'title tags'.

We have already developed a page title for Theresa. <title>Blooming Flowers Florist, buy flowers online at #1 Blooming Flowers flower shop in Amanda for delivery, guaranteed</title>

We now need to use those keywords from the page title text in heading tags on the web page itself. Many of the search engines place considerable relevancy on heading tags, especially toward the top of your page. You will receive the best value using <h> tags instead of <b> or <strong> with larger font.

Example:
<h3 align="right">Buy flowers online from Amanda flower shop</h3>
I would put this <h> tag high on the page, so the search engine would read it as the first paragraph.

BIG HINT: You should write page titles for every web page in your website to target a few different keyword phrases.

An added note for the more advanced web developers...It's a bad idea to use CSS styles to bold or italicize text or to create custom headings: The search engine spiders reading your web page don't analyze the CSS file. You can still use CSS, but be sure to use <h> tags for headings and your bolding and italicizing with the <b> and <i> tags.

.

mlou · Oct 3, 2006

Theresa,

My suggestion for your next baby step...You need to remove your name.jpg picture that says "Send Blooming Flowers".

The search engine spiders can't read your text in the .jpg file.

Replace it with <h1><font size="big" color="EOEOEO">Send Blooming Flowers</font></h1> This should look the same (very close) and the seach engines can read the keywords send flowers...

Here's the .jpg that should be removed...

Theresa · Oct 3, 2006

thank you!

Mary Lou, I am overwhelmed by your spirit of generosity and willingness to share your knowledge of the web.

Example:
<h3 align="right">Buy flowers online from Amanda flower shop</h3>
I would put this <h> tag high on the page, so the search engine would read it as the first paragraph.

Click to expand...

Would it be ok to make these heading tags for each page the same color as the background, so they "disappear"?

mlou · Oct 4, 2006

Theresa said:
...Would it be ok to make these heading tags for each page the same color as the background, so they "disappear"?

Oh, please don't...You will defeat everything we have done so far, plus you might get ban by the search engines. The search engines have penalized this black hat trick for sometime.

You need to read the do'd and don'ts posted above...

irrelevant keywords, hidden text, misleading descriptions - These methods to trick search engines often lead to the website being banned.

Now, you may want the <h> tag in the soft gray font and you may want to use a <h5>for smaller print...

.

Theresa · Oct 4, 2006

Thank you Mary Lou! I really like the name in text, instead of the picture, and it loads faster. Got the header on the top right corner in the light gray font.

I printed all of your posts and will be working on implementing your other suggestions.

I will be anxious to see the search engine results again when all of the improvements have been made.

mlou · Oct 5, 2006

Let's work with alt tags text next...

Alt Tags

The ALT tag (alternative text) is an attribute of the IMG tag. An ALT tag should be included for every image within your web site.

The alt tag is primarily for use when the image is not being displayed. So, why would the image not be shown...Well, people like "Boss" will turn off their images so the browser will load a web page faster. Also, Blind and sighted readers who access a web page using audio-based browser technologies will not use images. And other consumers that use laptops, PDAs, Palmtop and digital cellphone and Ocean yacht with satellite link...Then there are the robots (search engine spiders) that recognize and utilize ALT text as part of the page's contents

Example: (I took this code from a florist's website)

Here is the code used for a picture of a dozen roses
<img src='.../images/93/CBD4B5.jpg' border="0" WIDTH="275" HEIGHT="241">

Ok, let read what it tells you...

<Img src means open image source

= means equal

.../images/93/CBD4B5.jep? means go to the images folder, then find the 93 folder, then find the CBD4B5 picture

border="0" means no box or frame around the picture

Width="275" Height="241"> means the size of the image in pixels

NOTICE: there is no information for the people not loading the images?(HINT) primarily the search engines

So how would you optimize this:

<img src='.../images/12-red-roses.jpg? border="0" Width="275" Height="241" alt= "one-dozen-red-roses">

Why use ALT tags:
Describe images
Add keywords to site text
Should be used for each image
Make sites accessible to the visually impaired

How to test ALT text
Testing your ALT tags is easy. Simply disable image-loading in your and tour your site.

IMO, you should use slightly different mix of keywords (when compared with your "page title text" and "main text") in your alt text, in order to avoid spaming your web page with too many keywords (sometimes known as "keyword stuffing"), because spaming can in fact be counter productive.

Consider including common misspelling of a popular keyword in your alt text.
Example: Common typos and spelling mistakes for flowers: flower, flour, flowher, frower, frowher, flowel, flowhel, frowel, frowhel, flowers, flowhers, frowers, frowhers, flowels, flowhels, frowels, frowhels, flwers, floers, flowrs, flowes, fowers, rowels, rowhels, lowhers, rowers, rowhers, lowels, lowhels, lowers, phowers, f1owers, flowesr, flowres, floewrs, flwoers, folwers, lfowers

Include alternative spelling of a popular keyword in your alt text.
Example: ‘color’ versus ‘colour’.

If you are using images at the top of your page, make sure to include ALT tags.

Alt tag example: for a picture of a pink rose casket spray...
<img src='.../images/pink-roses-casket-spray.jpg? border="0" Width="275" Height="241" alt= "soft casket spray, expression of sympathy featuring pink roses accented by italian ruscus">

.

Sher · Oct 5, 2006

Example: Common typos and spelling mistakes for flowers: flower, flour, flowher, frower, frowher, flowel, flowhel, frowel, frowhel, flowers, flowhers, frowers, frowhers, flowels, flowhels, frowels, frowhels, flwers, floers, flowrs, flowes, fowers, rowels, rowhels, lowhers, rowers, rowhers, lowels, lowhels, lowers, phowers, f1owers, flowesr, flowres, floewrs, flwoers, folwers, lfowers
Wit my history of lousey typing and spelling , I should hire myself out just to write alt tags! Now there is a money making opportunity! Who's firt to offer me the job????
Sher

mlou · Oct 5, 2006

Theresa said:
... I will be anxious to see the search engine results again when all of the improvements have been made.

You don't have to wait long...I searched for some of our keywords.

When we started 1 week ago...
florist Amanda
Google - not found*
Yahoo -not found
Yahoo #33 (10/5)
MSN -not found

florist Amanda OH
Google #46*
Yahoo #56
Yahoo #19 (10/5)
MSN -not found

flower shop in Amanda
Google - not found
Google #39 (10/5)*
Yahoo - not found
Yahoo #2 (10/5)
MSN - not found
MSN #15 (10/5)

florist Lancaster OH
Google - not found
Yahoo - not found
Yahoo #33 (10/5)
MSN - not found

* Google uses many servers...one server (the one I hit to search "flower shop in Amanda") had a new cache (9/30). In the other searches, Google showed a 8/3 cache

We're moving on up!!!

Texr content is king!!!

.

mlou · Oct 5, 2006

So Theresa, did you decide on alt tags for your 16 img files?

Edited...16 img files on your home page...
.

Theresa · Oct 6, 2006

yes, thank you! And I am so thankful for all of your hard work!

mlou · Oct 9, 2006

Hey, Theresa...
Where are the alt tags?

Here's your ranking today...

florist Amanda
Google - not found (9/21)
Google - not found (10/5)
Google - #26 (10/9)

Yahoo -not found
Yahoo - #33 (10/5)
Yahoo - #46 (10/9)

MSN - not found (9/21)
MSN - not found (10/5)
MSN # 51 (10/9)

florist Amanda OH
Google - not found (9/21)
Google - #46 (10/5)
Google - #52 (10/9)

Yahoo - #56
Yahoo - #19 (10/5)
Yahoo - #23 (10/9)

MSN - not found (9/21)
MSN - not found (10/5)
MSN - not found (10/9)

flower shop in Amanda
Google - not found (9/21)
Google - #39 (10/5)
Google - #14 (10/9)

Yahoo - not found (9/21)
Yahoo - #2 (10/5)
Yahoo - #3 (10/9)

MSN - not found (9/21)
MSN - #15 (10/5)
MSN - #16 (10/9)

florist Lancaster OH
Google - not found (9/21)
Google - not found (10/5)
Google - #35 (10/9)

Yahoo - not found (9/21)
Yahoo #33 (10/5)
Yahoo #48 (10/9)

MSN - not found (9/21)
MSN - not found (10/5)
MSN - not found (10/9)

.

Theresa · Oct 10, 2006

working on it

Added some alt tags, and found that they are replacing my mouse overs; I need to work on this some more.

The search results are astounding, and encouraging me to work harder on my web page! Thanks Mary Lou.

Theresa · Oct 16, 2006

wow

#8 on Google...wow!

Thanks again Mary Lou!

Still working on content and alt tags. Great progress, thank you!

Website search results - baby steps please

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