Some Feedback Please

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Some Feedback Please

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All Forums >> Web Design >> Site Critiques >> Some Feedback Please

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pageoneresults

Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline

Some Feedback Please - 5/9/2001 20:41:00

Hello everyone, I'm new to the community here. Would anyone care to offer any feedback on my business site? I launched this in March 2001 and am still developing content. The main structure is there and I haven't done anything real graphical and probably won't for the next few months.

This site was built using FP2000 and most of its advanced features. There are SSI's (FP includes), forms with custom confirmation pages, java popups, bookmarks all over and a host of other neat little tricks. Check out the html coding. I'm getting ready for the jump to xml when it becomes supported by the major browsers and the search engines.

I was even able to get the FP search feature to function properly using the Microsoft Index Server. Let me know what you think, thanks in advance!

Goober

Posts: 1156
From: Pennsylvania USA
Status: offline

RE: Some Feedback Please - 5/10/2001 20:16:00

I didn't have time to wade through the content or even all the pages, but the layout is sharp.

The animated logo is quite annoying, but the good news is that it can be quickly scrolled out of sight.

It is my understanding that the meta keywords/phrases should be separated by commas, no spaces.

Good job.

Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

(in reply to pageoneresults)

pageoneresults

Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline

RE: Some Feedback Please - 5/10/2001 20:54:00

Good morning Goober, thanks for the feedback. As soon as I get into the office today I am going to locate the original file for the Logo and end the animation! You are the second to tell me that it was annoying and that's all I needed was a second comment.

In regards to the keywords tag. There are two trains of thought that apply. Using commas separates words or phrases hence providing the indexing spider with "exact phrases".

Not using commas now offers a broader combination of words. There are a number of people in the SEO industry that use both techniques with success. Some of the top SEO experts in the world recommend no commas. I'm currently testing both with a variety of industries to weigh the pros and cons. I have about twenty five active SEO clients and they all do extremely well (page one results) across the board using both theories.

The jury is still out in regards to this. The main issue is that the keywords tag is pretty much a dead area for optimization these days. Very few spider engines give much weight to the tag and it is really hard to give supporting evidence of the commas vs. no commas debate when there are 12 other areas that the SE's look at, the keywords tag being closer to the bottom of the list.

Thanks again for your feedback!

(in reply to pageoneresults)

abbeyvet

Posts: 5095
From: Kilkenny Ireland
Status: offline

RE: Some Feedback Please - 5/10/2001 23:00:00

I like your site, it is clean, easy to read and looks professional.

You have this in your <body> tag: stylesrc="http://www.123seo.com/index.htm" link="#3366CC" vlink="#808080" alink="#6699FF" which is unnecessary as you are using a linked style sheet where all that information is found anyway.

I also think that you would do well on the especially text dense pages to use headings for your paragraphs. People tend to scan pages online and some of yours take quite a bit of reading - paragraph headings would help the 'scanners'. Also if you used key phrases for your headings it might do no harm with search engines either!!

Good luck with it. I can't imagine many of the Outfronters will be able to afford your services so for those following this thread who want to do it themselves there are some very good resources for more about keywords and search engine optimisation here: http://www.searchengines.com/optimization_checklist.html
This one is also good and has a great free newsletter http://www.searchenginewatch.com/

This very discussion came up in one or other of the newsletters from one of these sites lately and the general opinion seemed to be that it did not matter whether there were spaces or not and that leaving spaces might increase your chances of having more phrases found. But I agree fully, keywords are of less and less importance.

Another site useful for those submtting to search engines is www.selfpromotion.com which walks you throught the process of SE submission - it is a very wordy site and takes a bit of reading but I have several sites ranking very high in SE's after using it. It is free but a voluntary payment of however much you like gives you some extra features.

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Katherine

InKK Design
LinKKs - Kilkenny's Online Magazine

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"Dogs have owners, cats have staff!"

(in reply to pageoneresults)

pageoneresults

Posts: 1001
From: Orange, CA USA
Status: offline

RE: Some Feedback Please - 5/10/2001 23:36:00

Thanks abbeyvet, you said...

quote:
You have this in your <body> tag: stylesrc="http://www.123seo.com/index.htm" link="#3366CC" vlink="#808080" alink="#6699FF" which is unnecessary as you are using a linked style sheet where all that information is found anyway.

The main reason that is there is to appease Netscape. For some reason it does not read the hover style in my .css which has been validated by the W3C. I just stripped it out a minute ago to verify and sure enough, Netscape uses the default red for the hover element, so I put it back in. You'll notice that is the only page that contains that code as the rest of them reference the background and colors for the index.htm file.

Yes, professional SEO services are not inexpensive. My pricing is what is referred to as mid-range for the industry. One thing to keep in mind is that I rebuild sites as part of the optimization process. Without proper html syntax and formatting, you lose some leverage with the indexing spiders.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which I've been doing since 1996, you can never offer enough information! Your point is well taken in regards to paragraph headings. Again, this site is still in its infancy stages and those pages will be refined further as we add more content and begin breaking it down into sub-themes.

Important Note About Submissions

I would advise anyone who is serious about promoting their site to stay away from auto-submission programs as they are now being frowned upon by the SE's. In fact, some of them are now ignoring submissions from these resources. I always recommend that you hand submit to all SE's. You have no other choice with the directories like Yahoo!, LookSmart and the ODP.

I have a page set up on my site where you can perform the manual submissions. There is a list of the top 40 search engines and directories with links to their submission forms. As you click on each link, a new window will open with the form. Once you've completed the submission, close the window and move on to the next one. The links are set up to gray out after you've visited so tracking your submissions is fairly simple.

P.S. There is no need to do constant submission to the SE's. In fact, this practice is also frowned upon and may harm your positioning with certain SE's. I always suggest that you submit once, following the guidelines set forth by the SE. Then you track those submissions. If, after a certain period of time (determined by the SE) your page has not been indexed, then you can resubmit starting the process over again. But, only submit those pages that did not get indexed.

If a page was indexed and does not rank highly, then it needs work before resubmitting. You should also resubmit any time there has been substantial content changes to your pages.

P.S.S. Feel free to visit us at the JimWORLD Search Engine Forums where we discuss these topics daily. You'll find me there under the same username of pageoneresults. It would be great if you mentioned that I (pageoneresults) referred you. I've been a member of that community since December 1999.

Thanks for your feedback.

[This message has been edited by pageoneresults (edited 05-10-2001).]

(in reply to pageoneresults)