[ShadowDragon]

Ive read somewhere that those fancy so called 'submit your site to a 1000 search engines' services are non sense and that search engine optimization to the select few that matter is the key, yknow big names like google, msn, yahoo and so forth.

Anyone had experience with this or know what is or isnt worth your time as far as working with the search engines to get your site up there?

 

[skulltshirts]

Well those sites that submit for you arent worth the time. You really want to do this yourself because you want to get your link into the best catagory possible that fits with what your link is about. Those sites will submit for you, but they may not get you in the right catagory.
It has been stated here at least a thousand times that SEO is your best and cheapest advertising you can do, so dont get lazy in this area. It is best to do this part yourself.

 

[jdr8271]

Submitting your sites to search engines does nothing, whether you submit it by hand, or whether a computer program submits you. It is a waste of time. If you get a link on a site that google crawls every day, you can have yourself indexed in one day. Submitting to google gaurantees nothing. Maybe within a month they will crawl you, but that still doesn't gaurantee that you will have a high ranking. In order to have a high ranking, you need to have a high google page rank. In order to get a high google page rank, you need to have lots of relevant links pointing to your site. Think of each link pointing to yourself as a vote for yourself. The more votes you get, the higher you will come up on the search results. If you run a site that sells golf t-shirts, a link from a site that sell s golf related items will be very helpfull, however a link from a site that sells shoes would not help as much.

The basic steps for getting high SEO are:
1. Format your pages to consistently repeat the same keywords, in your title, your metatags, and your body.
2. Get alot of links to your site. Either by link exchanges, or by making a really great site that everyone will link to without you even asking them.

 

[T-BOT]

when a new site is a valueable resource, 1 in-bound link from an old established site will get all SE's to crawl the new site within days.

mind you that it does not end there.

the biggest problem is keeping snoopy competitors from doing crazy things like link bombing a new site. I f***** hate snoopys. These peeps are dirt.

small %, but still dirt.

 

[ShadowDragon]

the biggest problem is keeping snoopy competitors from doing crazy things like link bombing a new site

Um... what is link bombing?

 

[jdr8271]

Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserable_failure

 

[T-BOT]

Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserable_failure

thanks Jon.

 

[Rodney]

I wouldn't repeat the same keywords over and over in the BODY content of your website (at least not like in a list). You should just make sure that your regular paragraphs that describe your site offerings and product descriptions include the keywords you would like to show up for.

Also, I would read this topic at Google for what NOT to do:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291&topic=8524

Here are some good tips for what TO do:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

 

[T-BOT]

Anyone had experience with this or know what is or isnt worth your time as far as working with the search engines to get your site up there?

serious, head over to google like rod mentioned.

don't waiste your time with SEO boards where link building and directories are their main topics, you will just start getting lots of junk-spam-mail.

 

[ShadowDragon]

Hrm, interesting, one of those google links provided has opened my eyes to how submitting and getting indexed and ranked by google is done.

Whats more interesting is there seems to be alot of emphasis but on the 'content' of a site. Obviously this isnt the only means to googles assessment of indexing and ranking a site, but something occurs to me...

Tshirt shops, I am asumming... predominatley dont have as much 'content'.

On an additional note, most of the bots that crawl the site dont recognise anything that isn't text.

They also say on google a best way to measure something is to ask your self , are you doing this to get ranks, or are you doing this to make the site content useful to a user not a search engine.

It kind of makes you wonder if we should be approaching tshirt store design with that in mind.

I know that when my site is up and running in a few months it will certainly include some descriptive text about each product and that I have maybe some articles of interest or something more than just the tshirts on the site without loosing the 'I am a tshirt store' theme at the same time.

 

[Rodney]

Tshirt shops, I am asumming... predominatley dont have as much 'content'.

Sure we do, it's just that our content is mostly commercial.

The thing that a lot of t-shirt shops forget is that search engines (and more importantly people) need that TEXT content to know how to understand what your site and products are about (and how to rank you).

I see a lot of t-shirt sites with cool designs, but no description of the designs on the ADD TO CART page. Nothing that tells the shopper what the design is about or to help them make a buying decision. Sure an image is nice, but people (And search engines) need text to make a decision.

Sometimes the words on the t-shirt can't be read (perfect content for a description), sometimes you THINK a design means something, but you want to make sure before you buy it. Sometimes you want to know more about the design or what it meant to the designer or why THEY think it is funny.

So while you shouldn't overload your t-shirt ecommerce site with text so it's like a book, you shouldn't neglect it either.

One of the other newsletters that I actually read when it hits my inbox is "The Grok", written by these folks: http://futurenowinc.com

You want to learn about converting browsing customers into buyers and writing copy for a site, that's a darn good start

 

[jdr8271]

Having mostly images is ok too, as long as you use alt="" and title="" tags on all your images. You should also have at least some text for search engine purposes.

 

[SlogoMogul]

I wouldn't repeat the same keywords over and over in the BODY content of your website (at least not like in a list). You should just make sure that your regular paragraphs that describe your site offerings and product descriptions include the keywords you would like to show up for.

Also, I would read this topic at Google for what NOT to do:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291&topic=8524

Here are some good tips for what TO do:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

There are also FREE SEO classes offered through the internet. You can sign up at gnc-web-creations.com . These course were immensely helpful to me. Unfortunately, through these courses I realized I need to build a new website

 

[Rodney]

Unfortunately, through these courses I realized I need to build a new website

Be careful where you are getting your information from though. I would bet (looking at your website) that you actually DON'T need a new website to be successful in search engines. Your current website just needs some minor tweaks. If the course led you to think that you needed a whole new website, you could be getting some misinformation.

 

[SlogoMogul]

If the course led you to think that you needed a whole new website, you could be getting some misinformation.

Hi Rodney, let me elaborate a bit. The course is taught in reference to people having HTML sites. I couldn't figure out how to apply the teachings to my site and I'm NOT a technical person or someone that knows anything about code(other than a LITTLE HTML) . I had someone give me a quote to recode the site for 1500.00. YIKES!!! I was feeling like I made a HUGE mistake with my website before I came across this forum, and frankly, didn't know where to turn. I don't know if I had a site created appropriate for a newbie.(I still am not sure)

I will say about the SEO course, I learned alot of EXCELLENT info. the problem was that I didn't understand how to apply it to my site. After I do some more reading in here and have at least 15 posts, I will definitely be posting in the classifieds here for HELP! Tony Le Tigre

 

[Twinge]

Search Engines would find your Sitemap more useful if you, er, actually had a Sitemap...

I'd also make sure you have some way of giving pages to the bots without the PHP Session IDs (Don't know if you do or not already); SE bots might either ignore pages with session ids, or index the same page multiple times - where it will look like duplicate content.

 

[Rodney]

I had someone give me a quote to recode the site for 1500.00

You can get it done for much less. That's why I suggested rentacoder.

I recently hired a coder there to remove phpsession ids from a different PHP site that I have and it only took them a couple of hours and cost less than $100. Another service you may want to hire a coder for is to enable mod_rewrite on your site to give your catalog pages more static looking URLs that are easier for search engiens to crawl.

But you should continue to research and learn what exactly it is you're trying to accomplish, that way when you ask for help, you'll be able to know exactly what you need and be able to research what others are paying for similar services.

Sounds like you're on the right track !

If you post a site review request in the Site Reviews, Design Reviews section of the forum, I'm sure some members will be able to give you some constructive feedback:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=36
(be sure to mention what the course said you needed to do to your site to make it more search engine friendly)

 

[SlogoMogul]

Search Engines would find your Sitemap more useful if you, er, actually had a Sitemap...

I'd also make sure you have some way of giving pages to the bots without the PHP Session IDs (Don't know if you do or not already); SE bots might either ignore pages with session ids, or index the same page multiple times - where it will look like duplicate content.

Yes, my web designer did the sitemap incorrectly and then I couldn't figure out how to put one up myself.....but there are other changes that need to be made anyway. i am aware about the PHP session ID's but I don't have any idea how to change those. I'm a little frustrated because I'm stuck on all these TECHNICAL website issues(my paypal is also set up incorrectly- if someone uses paypal to purchase it doesn't have an exact description of what they're buying) I should have used a template and had the site done in HTML so I could more easily understand how to make changes to the site and utilize SEO techniques. For now I'm studying posts through these forums and deciding how I want to proceed. There are SO many resources on here and many options that I either knew little or nothing about before i came across these forums. I will make a decision on the site and whether I have it fixed, create a new site, or go in another direction.....like possibly have designs created and licensing them.

I looked at a couple of your shirts. i have a small suggestion for your INVISIBILTY shirt. Change the wording to: If you can read this, my invisibility potion has worn off" The way you have it worded seems unnatural to me....no? Just my 2 cents

 

[Twinge]

I looked at a couple of your shirts. i have a small suggestion for your INVISIBILTY shirt. Change the wording to: If you can read this, my invisibility potion has worn off" The way you have it worded seems unnatural to me....no? Just my 2 cents

Nah, it's worded correctly. Various places where such things are listed (say, Dungeons & Dragons games) it's always Potion of XXXX Besides that though, the wording is fine either way; both are correct (yours actually sounds a little more "off" to me though it would work too). Be easier to just leave it, but thanks for the suggestion at any rate.

 

[SlogoMogul]

Nah, it's worded correctly. Various places where such things are listed (say, Dungeons & Dragons games) it's always Potion of XXXX

ahhhhhhhh, I guess I'm not familiar with that target market or the lingo so i guess my two cents worth is overvaluing my opinion by two cents. Enjoy your weekend!