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susu
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Changing my name or Design ? - 3/4/2006 15:42:42
Hi,
Can I have some ideas on making more sales at my website, on my hit counter I see only a trickle of views on my website, with perhaps a 47 being a high number on one lucky day. Should I change my name that is more relevant to my subject which is "resume design".
Advice would be much appreciated on increasing sales.
Thankyou, su
< Message edited by Spooky -- 3/4/2006 20:52:54 >
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coreybryant
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From: Castle Rock CO USA
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/4/2006 16:35:43
How long has your site been up? If it is less than a year, you have to work hard on getting your site listed in search engines. Content is key for the search engines. Plus, if you want people to stay on your web site - you have to grab their attention.
Your layout is pretty basic and I think it might be a template - I have seen that before.
And you have images on your site that do not go any where - yet they say something like tell a friend about this site or email / discusss this with your friends. I tried to click on them and nothing happened. Validate your site and you will see problems with your coding. That should be fixed as well.
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Starhugger
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/4/2006 23:57:08
Hi Susu,
I would add that it helps to use H1, H2, etc., for your heading lines. You seem to be using a lot of <p> tags for headings, as well as <br> to change lines and <span> to style entire lines. You're using a CSS style sheet, so you should be able to define how you want your heading lines and different paragraph lines from there.
I did what you've done initially too. But after I went through and cleaned up the formatting somewhat, using H-tags and using paragraph tags instead of span tags (except when I really did want to change only a few words), my search engine traffic went way up.
It also helps to use keywords, in your headings especially, that are high-demand keywords -- in other words, words that people punch into search engines a lot. You won't necessarily go to the top of the list, but you're more likely to come up in a search if you have some good juicy words that are emphasised by being in an H-tag heading. Using page names that include brief but good keywords can also help. When search engines display search results, they usually quote passages that contain the keywords the user punched in, so if you don't have those keywords in your content (or easily found there) then it will be hard for a search engine to refer a user to your site.
There's a great online tool that will tell you how many people requested a certain word or phrase, and other phrases using that word, in the previous month. This can give you an idea of how high a demand there is on various keywords and phrases. It's not infallible but it should give you an idea of some of the more common search terms:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Another thing that will help is to get yourself listed on other relevant websites and directories. When you get listed on other sites, or exchange links with them, you're sending out homing beacons for the search engines (and other users) to find you more easily. Although Google is putting less emphasis on reciprocal links now, it still can't hurt as long as the origin of the links is relevant. In other words, don't request to link with a spam site, or what I often call "link farms" that are really only there for their advertising. Believe me, they'll find you on their own.
Writing articles to publish on other sites that include a link to your site will also help and are great quality links to have, especially if you can get them published on sites with a higher rating than yours.
I hope that helps!
Starhugger
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susu
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/5/2006 13:50:32
Hi Starhugger,
thanks for your help, I am getting better at web design, but not sure what the H1 H2 and other tags you mentioned are and how to create them. You mentioned I am using P tags and br tags, but I have a long way to increase my programming knowledge. Can you explain step by step how to improve my site this way and what I have to do. Lastly the Keywords in the "heading" of my page, did you mean I should put keywords in the first Paragh of my Index page ? thanks in advance ! s
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Starhugger
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/5/2006 15:04:53
Hi Susu,
The H-tags are "Heading 1", "Heading 2", and so on, in the dropdown menu of available styles in FP. They create <h1>blahblah</h> in your code (or whatever number of heading you're using for that line). They apply to a whole paragraph at a time (not to individual words or phrases). Each one typically has a built-in format (e.g., 24pt, red, etc.), although the format can be changed while still keeping the H-tag designation.
When I first started out (like you are) I thought these were just a convenience to put in the default formatting, so I thought "Why go to the trouble of using them if I'm only going to change the formatting?" So I used <p> tags that specified the formatting I wanted. But later I went through and changed the section headings to H-tags (with modifications that use the visual formatting I wanted), my SE traffic went way up. So the H-tags apparently also act as an emphasis to the SEs, drawing attention to their content and essentially saying, "This is important."
To use the H-tags in FP, you can click the cursor anywhere in the heading's text and then select the Heading number you want from the dropdown list in the toolbar at the top. It will automatically surround that entire paragraph (the heading line, in this case) with the H-tag of that number.
If more than the heading line gets changed, then you probably have <br> at the end of your heading line (a manual line break, rather than a paragraph break) instead of </p> (a formal end code to a paragraph) or instead of <p> (indicating the start of a new paragraph, if the </p> isn't used). I too wound up with a whole slew of <br>'s in my code when I first started out with FP and wasn't sure what I was doing. I was never quite sure how most of them got there!
If you see that your heading line extends to include the next paragraph below it: First UNDO the change you just made to the H-tag (to avoid more complications). Then place the cursor at the start of what should be the end of the heading line. Press DELETE until the start of the next line comes back to the cursor (to take out all the extra <br>'s). Then press ENTER to put in an end-of-paragraph mark. Then place the cursor back in the heading line again, and select the Heading you want. (Note: If you just press ENTER at the end of the line without undoing the H-tag first, it will create a new paragraph that is also a Heading, which you don't want.)
You can then restyle each heading the way you want. The "cleanest" way is to redefine your heading styles in the document HEAD section, using CSS (check out the articles here on this site for more about CSS). Or, you could also just highlighting the line you want to change and then select the colour, font-size, bold/italic, etc., that you want from the FP toolbar. That might be the easier way until you learn more about CSS, but it also produces "dirtier" code. You'll also have to redefine the attributes for each heading line separately (i.e., changing one H2 line will not change all H2 lines, whereas the CSS method will change all H2 lines). You could benefit in the long run by learning more about CSS for future changes, when you're ready.
If you can't get your line to change the way you want, you might have to remove your <span> tags and any other formatting tags for that line. First try highlighting the whole paragraph; then select FORMAT in the menu and then REMOVE FORMATTING. If that doesn't do the trick, you may need to go into the code and remove the formatting tags manually.
As for using Headings in general: It's a good idea to use H1 only for the page title. Then H2 for the first level of sub-headings, H-3 for the next level, and so on. Each is valued as more or less important by the SEs according to which number you give it.
As for the keyword stuff, it sounds like you'll have enough on your plate for now just getting your code a little cleaner. The keyword stuff is just another step in a longer process, but I think the H-tags are more important for now.
I hope that helps! The more you learn about HTML, the more you'll be able to see when your code has gone a little wonky and you'll know how to change it and how to use the codes. Hang in there! It's a process that you'll get through in time. 
Starhugger
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caz
Posts: 3546
Joined: 10/10/2001
From: Somewhere south of Chester, UK
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/5/2006 15:34:54
The primary function of H elements is to provide semantic structure for documents (pages) not for styling - that should be done with CSS. The fact that they are used by SE's for indexing is a happy coincidence, which may or may not last. Semantic structure is also a great help for assistive technology when used to browse the web.
Clearly there is a need here to learn how to use Frontpage and also (x)html ; so as Donkey has taken care of the latter try this link to MS training courses for Frontpage 2003
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Starhugger
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/5/2006 15:47:09
quote:
ORIGINAL: caz
The primary function of H elements is to provide semantic structure for documents (pages) not for styling - that should be done with CSS. The fact that they are used by SE's for indexing is a happy coincidence, which may or may not last. Semantic structure is also a great help for assistive technology when used to browse the web.
Interesting... Thanks for clarifying that, Caz.
Starhugger
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susu
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/6/2006 0:31:13
thanks for your kind help on the H tags, I haven't been successful yet because nothing is dropping down from the top menu about h tags, but I will keep trying.
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Starhugger
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RE: Changing my name or Design ? - 3/6/2006 0:37:00
quote:
ORIGINAL: susu
thanks for your kind help on the H tags, I haven't been successful yet because nothing is dropping down from the top menu about h tags, but I will keep trying.
It's possible you don't have that feature in your toolbar. (I might have put it there when I customized mine.) Try FORMAT -- STYLE on the menu. It will show you a list of available tags and you can pick the H-tags from the list.
Starhugger
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