I’m trying to advertise my site, but am not having much luck. I have submitted to DMOZ, have used [url]www.gotlinks.com[/url] to increase inward and outward links, have submitted to all the major search engines and to some directories. I have about 5 people per day on my website- what am I doing wrong?!
@lindamoranMay 19.2005 — #Greetings. Linda Moran here. I'm on the team that developed the new book, Search Engine Marketing, Inc., which is due out this summer from Prentice Hall. It was written by two of the top Search experts in the world (one of whom I happen to be married to.)
I took at look at the two Web sites you listed (I assume both are yours), and first want to say that they are nicely laid out and appealing-looking.
Some problems I saw:
1. In your second site listed, when I clicked on HELP, I sometimes got a 404, and sometimes got a page that said "under development." I didn't check to see why the inconsistency, but neither result is good. Search engines do not like broken links, and neither do they like to see the words "under construction" or "under development." Those words alone could prevent Google from indexing you.
2. It is not advisable, though tempting, to submit your Web site to services that do your linking for you. Search engines find these automated links annoying and they could get you banned from some of them.
3. On your home page of the second one, you offer "link partners." Get rid of that. All of your outbound links from your site should be relevant to the subject that attracted your visitors in the first place, and therefore should be called "resources" or some other name like that.
4. Get rid of all of your outbound links that are not related to the subject matter of your site. Doing so will make your site more professional and more link-worthy. What you have on that page right now is called a "link farm" and is considered by the top search engines to be spam. It will prevent you from getting indexed.
5. Getting indexed and getting good links takes time and effort, but the work can really pay off. Below is some reading for you.
@tims15authorMay 20.2005 — #Thanks for your reply. The second website in my signature is mine, but not the first one.
I have changed the section Link Partners to be of relavent content to that of my website. Is this OK, or do you think I should get rid of it all together?
@lindamoranMay 20.2005 — #Relevant content is fine. There's nothing wrong wtih having some useful links for your visitors to follow. But I do suggest that you change the word "link partners" which is too blatantly an exchange of links to something on the order of "resources." And be sure your outbound really are relevant to your visitors. Stick with the narrow purpose of your site when considering whether an outbound link is relevant.