8 Things You Must Do To Optimize Your Site For Search Engine

zickit · Posts: 21857

This is a very interesting article - worth the time to read

The 8 Things You Must Do To Optimize Your Site For Search Engines - missed by over 98.4%
by Jon Rognerud

Search engines are better at spidering than you. The 3 most important search engines to optimize for are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You should get spidered by Google in less than 3 weeks if applied correctly, but a long term approach to SEO work is needed. You can expect to see your listing within 2-4 months for some pages, and as much time as 2 years for certain keywords/phrases within those.

NUMBER 1: Learn the SEO concepts.
NUMBER 2: Research the competition.
NUMBER 3: Linking Strategies and Relevancy.
NUMBER 4: Proper HTML and Site Building
NUMBER 5: Meet The Search Engines.
NUMBER 6: Use a proven methodology.
NUMBER 7: Learn how to use the SEO tools.
NUMBER 8: Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy. Why be "search relevant"?

READ more at
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Internet-Marketing/The-8-Things-You-Must-Do-To-Optimize-Your-Site-For-Search-Engines-missed-by-over-98-4.html

ONE thing nice about ecrater.com is they don't allow you to mess too much with the your home page. Which seems to work very well with the search engines.

fancyflappers · Posts: 650

Also a very good read, and not to boring either; http://selfpromotion.com/

zickit · Posts: 21857

2ndappearance · Posts: 91

I am so very confused!

I've just started to expand my store...and about time! lol.....and saw this thread, and read the suggested info. Spent an awful lot of time doing it. For a real dummy, it's very hard to understand everything.

However, I went through some of the suggested SEO changes, and was ready to paste their suggested code, and find that we can't us html.

So what's next? They're analysis of my store was that no search engine would find me!

Oh! So THAT'S why I haven't had any sales!

What to do?

zickit · Posts: 21857

2ndappearance · Posts: 91

Title and Meta tags. Didn't you suggest I look into that some time ago?

This is the code they generated for me:

<title>2ndappearance-Clothing & Jewelry</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="description" content="Have fun shopping for designer & brand name pants, suits, tops, jackets, shoes, bags, rings, bracelets, earrings & more at great prices!">
<meta name="keywords" content="pants, pant suits, jackets, blazers, sweaters, shirts, skirts, coats, bags, purses, belts blouses, tunics, shoes, rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, charms, earrings, scarves, gloves, activewear, tees, camis, tanks, tops, pins, brooches, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, pearls, sterling silver, Ann Klein, silk, leopard print, croc embossed, alligator, clip-on earrings, Rafaella, pearl embellished, beaded shirt, Lord & Taylor, beaded, turtlenecks, leather belt">

zickit · Posts: 21857

2ndappearance - that's for if you had your own website so what you need to do to use at ecrater.com is take out the HTML

login ecrater.com
on the left menu under Texts & Colors:
click on Edit Texts
select Title Tag- put in
2ndappearance-Clothing & Jewelry
update

select Meta Description Tag - put in
designer & brand name pants, suits, tops, jackets, shoes, bags, rings, bracelets, earrings & more at great prices
update

select Meta Keywords Tag - put in
pants, pant suits, jackets, blazers, sweaters, shirts, skirts, coats, bags, purses, belts blouses, tunics, shoes, rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, charms, earrings, scarves, gloves, activewear, tees, camis, tanks, tops, pins, brooches, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, pearls, sterling silver, Ann Klein, silk, leopard print, croc embossed, alligator, clip-on earrings, Rafaella, pearl embellished, beaded shirt, Lord & Taylor, beaded, turtlenecks, leather belt
update

Keywords seem like an awful lot to me.
You might enter it as is for now, then go to http://www.widexl.com/remote/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.htm and see what it says.

FOR more get info
read this thread -
http://www.ecrater.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=14&start=0

2ndappearance · Posts: 91

Thanks so much, bigtall. Under your direction, that was very easy. However, the link you gave for checking gave an Error Code 404 Not Found.

The maximum recommended for the Meta Tag is 876, but they recommend not to use that many. I used 461.

The odd thing is that when I ran my site through again, although it is much, much better, they still say it is nowhere near optimized. I would love to copy & paste what they say. Would that be okay? And/or are you interested?

zickit · Posts: 21857

I can see them myself by putting in your URL.

I see you have nothing on any search engines at all except for 2 mentions on MSN. That's not good at all.

Have you submited to any search engines?

I will send you a PM of what I see on the analzer for your store.

2ndappearance · Posts: 91

I just submitted to Google. I'm certain I had done that some weeks ago.

I thought eCrater submitted?

Would love to see what you get. And if you have any suggestions for me, I sure would appredfiate.....a LOT!

zickit · Posts: 21857

2ndappearance · Posts: 91

I wonder how MSN found me.

BTW Sitemeter's 2 reports to me so far, show 0s all down the line! That was disappointing. And I didn't even turn off my visits!

And what does PM mean?

zickit · Posts: 21857