search engine listing

Everything to do with using your own website to advertise your rental property. Design, usability, hosting, getting listed on the search engines, optimising your site, pay-per-click, etc, etc.
fishingmoocher
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:47 pm
Location: playa blanca
Contact:

search engine listing

Post by fishingmoocher »

has anybody used a company called submision-pro,as i want to list my website with the top search engines.there top pckage is $199 for 12 months listings, can anyone advise me what to do to get ore hits on my site.
User avatar
Sue Dyer
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 2:26 pm
Location: Belford, Northumberland

Post by Sue Dyer »

Hi there
I can't comment on submission-pro but I had a quick look at your website out of curiosity. I know you haven't asked for a web review so I hope you don't mind my comments as you'll want visitors to stay on your site once they get there :)

Have you optimised the photo's? (I've just checked the home page) They are taking ages to download and I'm on broadband. Someone coming along to your site on dial up may get impatient and give up! There are a few threads on the forum on getting the best from website photos - you should be able to find with the search feature. Hope this is helpful. - Sue
charles
Posts: 92
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 12:00 am
Location: London.UK
Contact:

Post by charles »

I wouldn't use a company if I were trying to optimise my site - but a person - i.e. someone you know or have been recommended. I have yet to hear from anyone who has had success from these placement submission companies. If there were that good they'd be making more money that Shell and BP combined!

Anyway, things you can do:

1. I couldn't see any meta keywords on your site - these help Google et al classify your site accordingly.

2. The pictures on your site are too big - most are 600k+ - reduced them to 30k or less if you can - that will help people on dial-up connections- your site loaded slowly on my 1Mb connection!

3. I would add some more external links to high-traffic sites such as Easyjet and Ryanair (if applicable) but make sure they open in new browsers like the ones you already have

4. Most search engines allow you to submit sites for free - it might take a while but you'd save $199

5. If you must spend the $199 do so with with Google Adwords - use target keywords to bring the right sort of 'clientele' to you

6. Look at the text on your site - make sure you are using the right keywords for your site throughout your descriptions

7. And look at the free listings thread on this site


Can't think of anything else at the moment,

Hope this helps,

Charles
User avatar
paolo
Posts: 3885
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
Contact:

Post by paolo »

Welcome to the forum, Fishingmoocher. Image

Don't pay a company to submit your site to search engines, it is a waste of your money. All you need for your site to be listed on search engines is a link from a site that is already listed on them. The search engine spiders will follow the link to your site and add you to their index (some quicker than others).
Paolo
Lay My Hat
User avatar
vrooje
Posts: 3202
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:48 am
Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Welcome to the forum!

Yeah, what they said -- your images are all huge but displayed as small thumbnails. Try using a graphics program to re-size the images to the actual size they are displayed at -- that will help a lot.

You could check out the free tools at 1-hit.com; that's a site I've recently found that has some useful tips for meta tag suggestion and such. Don't fill out the forms on their homepage, but go ahead and use the free stuff linked to by the menu on the left side of the page.

Even back in the days when Yahoo! was the way to go, these search engine submission marketers were mostly a waste of money. Nowadays you can get your site listed for free on Yahoo by going through dmoz.org (though it may take a while for them to get to you), and the other search engines are spider-based.

Actually, having your web link on this forum will help you get indexed! :)

Cheers!
Brooke
User avatar
Steve Noctor
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 10:37 pm

Post by Steve Noctor »

Hi fishingmoocher

I agree with the others and would definately advise against using such companies. Search Engine optimisation can be very time consuming and for the money they are charging I don't see how they can spend enough time to offer any significant results. (This and the fact that I have never come across one of these low cost companmies that have ever delivered.)

Some more tips to help if you wish to DIY (which unless you have lots of money to burn I would recommend).

1/ Make your title text more descriptive (the bit that goes here <title>Bookings</title>). In this instance perhaps rename to something like "Villa to rent in Lanzarote - Rental Rates". Try to ensure this text contains the keywords you are looking to target for that page. This is used quite substancially be search engines when placing sites in order of relevance.

2/ Drop the spaces from your page names. In this example - The%20Island.htm the space is replaced with %20 which is the HTML equivalent for a space. Instead try removing the spaces TheIsland.htm

3/ Links from other sites of related interest are hugely important if you wish to list well. Try listing in free directories and also consider creating a links page an swapping links with other sites (reciprocal links). When a site links to you ensure your keyword phrase is used as the link text. e.g.

Villa to rent in Lanzarote

4/ Content, content and more content. The searh engine spiders love content rich websites. The more "relevant" content you can create on your website the better. Then draw up a list of keywords you would like to target and ensure these keywords appear in the text and the titles of the relevant pages.

5/ Ditto the comments on images - its unlikely to affect the search engines but there's no point getting visitors to you site if they leave as soon as they arrive.

Search Engines Optimisation (SEO) is a huge topic, and you are in a highly competitive market place, but hopefully thse tips will help to bring some new traffic to your site.

Let me know if you need any further assistance, I don't want to bombard you with too many tips in one post ;)


Steve
fishingmoocher
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:47 pm
Location: playa blanca
Contact:

Post by fishingmoocher »

soodyer wrote:Hi there
I can't comment on submission-pro but I had a quick look at your website out of curiosity. I know you haven't asked for a web review so I hope you don't mind my comments as you'll want visitors to stay on your site once they get there :)

Have you optimised the photo's? (I've just checked the home page) They are taking ages to download and I'm on broadband. Someone coming along to your site on dial up may get impatient and give up! There are a few threads on the forum on getting the best from website photos - you should be able to find with the search feature. Hope this is helpful. - Sue
many thanks for the advise sue
Post Reply