I Need Website Advice

[Dwight]

I finally was able to get my website pieced together and published: www.dwightsgunleather.com

I understand that there are services who are able to "submit" a website to the major search engines in such a manner that you can wind up in the first few pages, . . . which would obviously enhance the possibility of sales.

If anyone has done that and would care to share your experience, I would certainly appreciate it. I've spent a couple hours looking at various offerings, . . . and came away probably more confused than when I went into it.

My goal is to just get noticed out there, . . . get some traffic, . . . and not spend the kings gold to get it done.

Thanks, may God bless,

Dwight

[Johanna]

Step one is to fill out your profile here, and include your web site. #2. Create an account in our directory and fill in all the info so people can find you. You can cross link with sites that have similar content to improve your site ranking. Step three is to submit your site to Google using "webmaster tools". While you're doing that, I'm off to look at your site. I'm going to be looking for keywords, good images, picture tags, contact info and other things that help your site be found on the 'net.

~J

[BigRiverLeather]

I'll be following Johanna's advice and watching this thread as well. I have yet to find my site by doing a google search. I can get plenty of hits to forums I participate in, but my site does not come up. Seems strange to me.

[BigRiverLeather]

Hmm... I registerd in the directory and when I went to my email to confirm, I got this when I clicked the link to confirm my registration -

Not Found

The requested URL /pmd/members/user_confirm_email.php<c=e65f96a0114edb81261ea722d81e8d43-213 was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache/2.2.15 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.15 OpenSSL/0.9.8m DAV/2 mod_fcgid/2.3.5 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at leatherworker.net Port 80

[TwinOaks]

Also, some suggested readings: Look up the threads by UKRay on selling sideways, and others. He's had some great ideas on how to increase sales.

[CitizenKate]

Hmm... I registerd in the directory and when I went to my email to confirm, I got this when I clicked the link to confirm my registration -

...

Thanks for letting us know, and sorry for the inconvenience. I've activated your account, so you should be able to log in now. Feel free to let us know if you need any further assistance.

Kate

[Jeremy Stead]

Hi Dwight,

It's all about Keywords and content pages.

I'm at the top of google if you search for wade saddles, or ranch saddles.

I've never registered with search engines, you don't have to,

they always find you with their "spiders"

I'm Jeremy , feel free to ask away ,I'll give you a hand.

[Ferg]

I finally was able to get my website pieced together and published: www.dwightsgunleather.com

I understand that there are services who are able to "submit" a website to the major search engines in such a manner that you can wind up in the first few pages, . . . which would obviously enhance the possibility of sales.

If anyone has done that and would care to share your experience, I would certainly appreciate it. I've spent a couple hours looking at various offerings, . . . and came away probably more confused than when I went into it.

My goal is to just get noticed out there, . . . get some traffic, . . . and not spend the kings gold to get it done.

Thanks, may God bless,

Dwight

I have had a number of websites that I wrote since 1996. Search engine listers were and are coming out of the woodwork as soon as you get on.

We spent thousands of dollars with Google and YaHoo, none of the sites were ever above #40.

Junked all of that garbage and let it ride. I don't think any of our sites are listed lower than 13th. That will give you good sales.

Get a chunk of reality though, there are many sites touting just what you have to sell, word of mouth just about winds up being the best advertisement.

Johanna gave some excellent ideas.

BTW: I looked at your site. It is a "Plain Jane". You need some nice photos of your work on the front page with concise information.

I hate sites with all the Flash and sounds that provide nothing.

Read some books and look around the Net at some sites that are similar to yours. You can also access Templates for most anything you can imagine, don't buy them, there are too many free.

I must ask, what are you using for a Site Builder?

PS: I wrote this site for my Son-in-Law. May give you some ideas as well as looking at an interesting subject for a lot of folks on this Forum.

http://www.classiccarvedgrips.com/

ferg

Edited August 3, 2010 by 50 years leather

[Spinner]

As far as your specific question Dwight, Search Engine Optimization firms for the most part are a joke. Their tagline is "To get your website ranked in the Top 10 listings for your chosen keywords on the top 10 major search engines!". What they don't tell you is:

1) Only 3 search engines really matter to 90% of the population.

2) Your chosen keywords may not be the best for your business and they don't provide keyword and/or industry analysis

3) they may combine your keywords to form 'keyphrases' that are easier to get ranked, yet not searched for as often

4) charge a ton of money to do something most hobbyist webmasters can do themselves.

As others mentioned, the biggest things you can do are easy and done to your own website:

* Keywords in your meta tags, alt-tags, photo names, and used in your website (i.e. content, links, etc.)

* Update your content regularly - the more often your content updates, the more often a search engine will crawl it (one reason large forums and blogs are crawled almost daily)

* Relevant content - search engine algorythms are getting smarter. Having content that is well written and relevant to your website (articles on leatherworking, etc.) with keywords used in a logical manner helps.

* Cross-linking: trading links with related websites (like LW) that have larger followings will help as the spiders will crawl links from large sites outward

* Submit your site to the search engines manually. This isn't a huge task. Half of today's search engines are either owned or fed by the 3 major ones: Google, Bing and Yahoo. Submit to those 3 at a minimum.

* Use tools such as Google Analytics. These are tools the search engines supply to track web visitors and such. What most folks don't know is they also serve the search engines as a secondary submission - as traffic increases, spider scheduling increases.

* Social Networking. Sites like Facebook now allow for Fan Pages where you can set up a Facebook page for your business. You can give updates, sales info, etc to your fans and if you leave the settings "Public", search engines can index the info. They also allow for more word of mouth as someone who sees your posting on a friends feed can share it with others without even being a fan of your page.

* Sit back and wait. This is the hardest step in the process. Most search engines have a 1-6 week backlog for indexing new websites. Even with the process being automated and electronic, their priorities fall something like: News Feeds, Corporate Sites, Active Sites, index backlog, new submissions.

The above is basically what you get from an SEO firm for their starter package of $800...now you have it for free. Do the few hours of legwork yourself and go buy some leather with the savings.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[tinmann8]

I'll drop in and give my two cents worth. In my opinion, hiring a SEO company is a worthwhile investment provided you already have a steady flow of business. I personally don't have the time to implement the great suggestions offered by Spinner, which is why I use an SEO firm. They also hire writers that blog on various related subjects, then link back to my site in the credits. For about $1-2k a month, they will get you and keep you in the top 10 search results for the keywords that matter. This often takes 6-12 months however, so its a long term investment. If you're short on capital, why not try Google AdWords instead? You can plunk down $50, choose the keywords your customers use when searching, and watch the visitors roll in. When you pair this with the free Google Analytics package, you'll be able to really track whats happening when visitors come to your website. You can expect to pay anywhere from $.25 - .75 per click with AdWords. If your website is designed properly, you have the product and price the customer wants, then you can expect about 2-4 in every 100 visitors to make a purchase right away. Then you have the folks who do research and come back at a later date to make a purchase, which are harder to track. Google offers free training on their site for AdWords that will help you understand everything about the process in far greater detail than I can provide.