[neato]

Can anyone recommend a company or person who will look over my site and optimize it for search engines?

Or is this something I should do myself?

 

[Rodney]

Re: SEO

I wouldn't recommend hiring anyone to do SEO for you. It's something that you can do on your own and that way, you'll have total control and understanding of what's happening on your site (to make sure no bad tricks are used).

Here are some good threads here at the forum that will help:

How Important is SEO?

5 Best Practice Tips for Successful T-Shirt Sites

SEO Tips from forum member JDR8271

New Article on SEO

A good place to start is Google's Webmaster Guidelines, Technical Guidelines to Improve your page and Quality Guidelines.

If you still have questions after that, feel free to post. We have some folks here in the forum that are happy to lend some tips.

 

[neato]

Re: SEO

Thanks Rodney. That'll get me started!

 

[DesignSource]

Re: SEO

You Rock! Thanks for all the great info. I need to get crackin!

 

[rusty]

Re: SEO

This is very good information. The importance is clear, but I haven't seen much information on actually how to do it. For example, I'm using a CubeCart v3 skin, so how would I go about SEO for my pages?

Thanks,
Rusty

 

[rrc62]

Re: SEO

I notice the same thing. Everyone says not to pay a service, do it yourself, it's easy, they talk about it's importance, etc., but info on exactly how to do it is virtually non existent.

 

[karlking85]

Re: SEO

Actually I believe the info on how to do this can be found in those threads that Rodney listed.

 

[rusty]

Re: SEO

Actually I believe the info on how to do this can be found in those threads that Rodney listed.

They tell you what to do, but don't tell you how to do it. For example, one of them says to use URL's without ?'s. Well, most of my pages have ?'s in their URL's, but I have no idea how to take them out, since I didn't put them in there to begin with. And for some of the other suggestions, I don't even understand what they are referring to. If it's as easy as people suggest, I would think somebody could explain HOW to do some of the steps.

 

[karlking85]

Re: SEO

Unfortunately, I am no expert in web functionality either. I wish I was, but I am still learning alot of it myself. The little idiosyncricies that plague the world wide web just makes it almost impossible to get evry last thing right without beating your head against the wall. What did they ever do before computers??

 

[rusty]

Re: SEO

What did they ever do before computers??

Played outside in the street .

 

[AustinJeff]

Re: SEO

I notice the same thing. Everyone says not to pay a service, do it yourself, it's easy, they talk about it's importance, etc., but info on exactly how to do it is virtually non existent.

The thing about SEO is that it changes rapidly. Old techniques can be worse than useless, they can actually get you banned. There's plenty of places with discussions of the latest techniques, but it's impossible to discern the significance of these without a solid knowledge base. And it's hard to build a knowledge base, because it can be difficult to tell if the basic information you find is still relevant.

What's needed is a single, comprehensive up-to-date source. Fortunately, it does exist. It's called the SEO Best Practices Guide, and it is the bible of the industry. Unfortunately, it is not free. It will set you back about $300. But it is well worth it.

 

[SunEmbroidery]

Re: SEO

If you are interested in learning SEO yourself there are wonderful, free classes offered by Cricket Walker at Custom Website Creations - Web Creations - Custom Websites. The classes are given in email format (Yahoo Groups) on a monthly basis. You are required to sign-up for the SEO & Marketing classes at the same time. The classes are "work at your own pace" and you can start any time (mid class). I strongly recommend these classes!

 

[Rodney]

Re: SEO

They tell you what to do, but don't tell you how to do it. For example, one of them says to use URL's without ?'s. Well, most of my pages have ?'s in their URL's, but I have no idea how to take them out, since I didn't put them in there to begin with. And for some of the other suggestions, I don't even understand what they are referring to. If it's as easy as people suggest, I would think somebody could explain HOW to do some of the steps.

The reason why it doesn't show the *how* is because there are literally 100's of different ways to do it depending on how you setup your website and what software you use.

If your case, using cubecart, you would just search for cubecart SEO and you'll find lots of tips and how to instructions. For cubecart, you need this mod: Cube Cart (CC3) SEO Mod - Search Engine Friendly URLs, Custom URLs, Meta Tags, Robots.txt & PHP Session Killer · ruki spot

So by telling you "what" to do, it lets you know what you should be researching to find out the "how" for your specific web setup.

Google also recently published some good general how to guides for webmasters that will help people realize what makes a search engine friendly website: Creating a Google-friendly site

 

[rusty]

Thanks Rodney! I'll definitely check that out.

 

[cmyk]

i'm sorry my english is not so good.
8 weeks ago i knew nothing about how to make a website, and 4 weeks ago SEO was something i've even never heard about.

now i prowdly say that my home-made web site hits the first gooogle search page in many key words combinations, after no more than 2 weeks after it's been launched on the www. and the competition in my main field (promotional and personalised items) is fierce .

i would gladly give some advices, but the web pages i got my info from are not written in english.

so - SEO is definetely something you can do by yourself.
you need patience, motivation, time (many sleepless night searching the web), and, again, patience.

from what i've read, all seem to my very good advices, but i'm no expert att all.
i just got it working somehow

my site was built using Web Page Maker, it's extremely easy to use, and it helped a lot i the seo process.
i also used some seo tools, like these ones here:

Website Webmaster Search Engine Tools

 

[cmyk]

i forgot to mention.

i undestand that seo is almost a continuous process, you have to take care of it along the time, it's not like you did it today and you'll have the same results forever.
this is because your competition is also seo-ing (?) their websites.
i think you already know that, but it's some sort of reminder for myself
good luck!