Next step please????

[jicolynch]

Hi Lynn and Everyone!

Would appreciate you input on my next steps. I just set up a website for my husbands jewelry through a hosting company. Am all done, and I now need to market and submit to the search engines. Would appreciate your ideas and input on how I can do this on a limited budget!

Jim is not retirement age yet, but Construction is killing him, and I am trying to ease him into something he loves and is good at. Want it to be a success for him!!

I know I am a novice , but I am teachable!!!

Thanks Bunches!

[Lynn Terry]

Hi Connie - Welcome to the forum

First - you dont need to submit the site to the search engines. It is a waste of your time (and a waste of money if you purchase the service, or buy software for that purpose). All you need to do is get links pointing to your new site from other related sites in order for the search engines to find and index your site.

I hope that made sense. I am going to refer you to the (our weekly newsletter) as almost every step is detailed out there.

Start with this one:

I'm sure that will raise some questions, so let me know

[jicolynch]

Thanks so much Lynn.... I appreciate all the help I can get. I am being a sponge and reading all your archives etc. Am so glad I found you as all the advise I have read on here is the best.

Also, thanks for the welcome.... I plan on staying and being a part of the group

Connie

[Lynn Terry]

Great, I look forward to getting to know you! Make yourself at home here and feel free to join in on the current discussions. If you'd like a review of your site, or some suggestions from seasoned webmasters, you are welcome to post that in the HTML/Web Design category.

[jicolynch]

[Jeff Casmer]

[Troy]

There are many ways.

Yes, as Lynn said, submit to the engines first. Manually, as search engines do not like automated submissions. here are the links to the main engines.

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ (yahoo.com)
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl (google.com)http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx? (MSN)

These are the top dogs, but their are many other that you can find by just going to google and typing in "add url".


I was looking at your website. It is very nicely done, however I noticed on thing. You don't have a title in your meta tags. Your title tag looks like this...
<title>your title here</title>

Your title tag should be relevent to your business, and should contain at least one related keyword. I know that in google, your title tag is one of the most important factors in determining where your position fits, but there are many. I would suggest reading up on search engine optimization.


One of the best ways to get traffic, and is free, is to exchange links with others in the same field. You can do this by building a "link partners" section. Their is much infomation on the net about trading links, but here are a few tips...

As your website is new, trade links with sites that have a google page rank of at least 5. (this can be figured out by using the google toolbar).
after you have built your own pagerank, then you can trade links with lower ranking websites.

Trade links with other jewelry and craft related sites. Not only will you get traffic from these websites, but search engines also use this as a factor when determining your position. Some webmasters stay away from trading links that are in direct compitition with them, but I don't because I really don't mind giving the compitition a little traffic if they are willing to do the same for me.

You might consider running ads in google, Pay per click search engines and other high traffic jewelry sites that have advertising space. This will get you immediate traffic if you run a good campain.

Hope this helps!

[Lynn Terry]

[jicolynch]

Thanks so much for the great advise Jeff and Troy and Lynn....
I was working on SEO on the site last night. I work full time as well, so a little at a time is all I can do.. My job however is a very slow and boring one, where I am a receptionist and I have alot of time to research during the day. Have been absorbing info in SSWT, and must admit my head is swimming, but it is starting to make sense. Used Word tracker and found my keywords and optimized the site and pages last night. However I am confused with your statement Troy:

"I was looking at your website. It is very nicely done, however I noticed on thing. You don't have a title in your meta tags. Your title tag looks like this...
<title>your title here</title> "

Are you speaking about not having" Jim'stonejewelry. Unique silver jewelry designed by Jim Lynch " at the top??? I apologize for being such a newbie.... But I am not familiar with html I know and need to learn so much yet. I am open to any and all suggestions for what I need to do. You all a super to be so patient with me!

I am working on the links and forums also to get our info out there. Will be studying up a storm today as it looks like another slow one here at work.

Thanks everyone for your help and understanding!!

Connie

[Lynn Terry]

Hi Connie,

He wasnt referring to the "text header" on your page - but rather the "title tag" in your HTML code. This is where you want to put your primary keyword phrase - and also something descriptive about the page. It should be unique for each page.

As you go through the SSWT site, notice how the title bar changes for each page (at the very top of your screen - the same bar that has the three boxes in the top right corner where you can minimize or close the window). If you look up now, do you see where I am talking about? Right now it should say: "View Topic: Next Step Please???"

You do that for each page using this code: <title>title here</title> after your <head> and before your </head> tags.

Now, if you go to Google and do a search for "learn internet marketing": http://www.google.com/search?&q=learn+i ... +marketing , look at the 3rd listing (the sswt site). What you see there in the search results is the title and description - which are tags in your HTML


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I hope that helps 'bring it all together' for you a bit more

[Rose]

[jicolynch]

You all are so great to help me.... In talking with another user of my website host company I verified we do not use HTML codes at all. In the site there is a Meta Tag Data area which has Web Site Title, Web Site Keywords and Web Site Title. I have filled those out. Individual page Meta Tag Data can be edited from the Page Properties of each Page, which I have done for each also. I have contacted the support of the company (Simplehost) to see what else I can do. When I go into my home page it says in the browser http://www.jimstonejewelry.com/index.ph ... -Microsoft Internet Explorer. . I will keep you posted.

I am getting busy with forums and links. I WILL make this site a success!!

Hugs to all and thanks for helping this newbie.

[Lynn Terry]

Let us know what your host says about being able to edit your title tags - they should be able to point you in the right direction. It's a basic tag, and should be unique on each page... they'll know that.

[jicolynch]

I sure will!

[jicolynch]