Hi Vacruiser ~
I can certainly appreciate your concern about PozoBoxes' search engine
placement and search engine ranking.
High visibility is important to reach those searching for moving and
packing supplies. By the very nature of your business, I would imagine
that repeat customers are rare (how often does one person move?), so
you need to attract your customers at the specific time they are
looking for you.
At your request, I have reviewed your site, Pozoboxes.com, and make
the following suggestions.
The Basics - HTML
=================
Shari Thurow, one of the leading authorities in search engine
optimization, and author of the book "Search Engine Visibility",
recently observed the following about HTML:
"Clean HTML is absolutely imperative for search engine indexing.
Browsers are extremely forgiving when it comes to displaying pages
with "unclean" HTML (unclosed tags, no quotation marks, etc.). Search
engine spiders are not so forgiving. Even something as simple as a
missing quotation mark on the <.a href="page.html"> can cause a spider
to not index text or a link." (See: Link Exchange Digest, July 3,
2003, "Clean HTML")
- http://list.audettemedia.com/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind0307&L=led&D=1&T=0&H=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=282
Differentiating between search engine indexing and search engine
ranking, she explained how errors in HTML can affect your ability to
be indexed, and ultimately, ranked.
A check of your coding reveals some omissions which should be on every
page in order to facilitate indexing your pages.
1. DOCTYPE Declaration
----------------------
The first omission is a doctype declaration on every page. DOCTYPES
are essential to the proper rendering and functioning of web documents
in compliant browsers. It is also essential for the search engines to
understand and follow the coding contained on your pages.
DOCTYPE is explained and discussed further in "A List Apart",
- http://www.alistapart.com/stories/doctype/
and in Web Design Group's article, "Choosing a DOCtype",
- http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html
Considering the coding on your pages (and to ensure your pages appear
as you intend in the greatest amount of browsers - including
deprecating to the quirks of older browsers in use), I would suggest
using:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
2. Navigation
-------------
Google recommends designing your site for your visitors, as opposed to
trying to design your site for PageRank. Among the recommendations are
to "[m]ake a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page
should be reachable from at least one static text link."
PozoBoxes does not contain text links, and some pages contain no links
at all, necessitating the use of back button to get somewhere else on
the site.
Google also recommends providing a Site Map, which, of course,
provides the search engine browsers a complete 'map' to your site for
indexing pages.
It is pretty common, almost customary, for sites to contain text links
at the bottom of every page. This enables your visitors to get from
one page to another easily. It is also fairly customary for graphical
navigation links to appear in the same place on every page for the
same ease of use for your visitors.
You really need site links on every page of your website.
See Google's Design and Content Guidelines:
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
3. Alt Tags
-----------
Google also recommends the use of alt tags for every graphic. This is
because search engines cannot read graphic images. Inasmuch as you are
using graphics for your internal site links, you cannot afford to NOT
add those ALT attributes to your graphic tags.
In addition, your Page Title is an image tag:
<img src="title.gif" border="0" width="369" height="71" >
This tells search engine crawlers and certain browsers in use by your
visitors absolutely nothing about what that graphic actually is. You
should add the ALT attribute to that graphic tag so it reads something
like:
<img src="title.gif" alt="PozoBoxes.com" border="0" width="369"
height="71">
or even
<img src="title.gif" alt="Boxes Are Our Business - PozoBoxes.com"
border="0" width="369" height="71">
Another instance, in your internal links - for "Package Deals":
The current image tag reads: <img name="Image6" border="0"
src="pd.gif" width="180" height="72">. Neither "Image6" nor "pd.gif"
translate to anything distinguishable for search engines (not to
mention accessibility browsers), so those image tags become a hazard
for search engine optimization.
The tags should include the ALT attributes, so they would look
something like this:
<img name="Image6" border="0" src="pd.gif" alt="Package Deals"
width="180" height="72">
Google's suggestion: "Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are
descriptive and accurate." (See Google's Design and Content
Guidelines)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Add ALT attributes to all your image tags, and this will increase the
ability to index your site.
A Word of Warning: Don't 'spam' the ALT tags with a lot of superfluous
verbiage, that will be as bad as no ALT tags for your images.
4. Accessibility
----------------
Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794
and 794d, set forth the minimum government standards for
accessibility.
Among these standards are such items as ALT and TITLE tags (as
discussed above), and website design which will enable those with
special needs to be able to access and understand your web site.
You might want to run each page of your site through Bobby, which will
give you a full context report on what portions of your site do not
meet the minimum standards. If you make all the corrections suggested,
it will greatly enhance any search engine's ability to crawl your
website as well.
The Bobby analysis page can be found here:
- http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
5. Aesthetics
-------------
(A.) What's Above the Fold
--------------------------
While not as important for search engine crawlers as it is for your
site's visitors, you should have your important content appear "above
the fold". "Above the fold" means that first screen full of
information.
There are several important things that should appear above the fold:
* Your logo or company slogan to help establish your “brand”.
* WIIFM (What's in it for me?). A list of some benefits your visitors
will enjoy by staying on your site or buying your products or
services. This should include keywords for the search engines and
should focus on the visitors.
What is the biggest benefit to your visitors?
* A navigation menu. Your visitor has come to your site for a purpose.
Don’t make them hunt for your links - on any page!
* Special Offers Promotions, etc.
And remember to try not to clutter this area.
Some good articles on effective Website design and discussion of
"above the fold" can be found here:
* NetLingo, The Internet Dictionary, "Above The Fold Defined"
- http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/above_the_fold/
* RMH Web Design: "Web Site Design: Designing Above the Fold"
- http://www.rmhwebdesign.com/articles/abovethefold.html
* SitePoint, "10 Tips to Building A Click-Ready Website"
- http://www.sitepoint.com/article/224
Other articles discussing the benefits of effective Website design can
be found by using the search term:
- articles: web design + above the fold
or
- effective web design
(B.) Move your Navigation Up
----------------------------
Since the content of your page takes up more vertical space than your
navigation graphics, it defaults to the middle of that table column.
You might want to pull those navigation graphics up into the first
screen by adding the attribute <valign="top"> to the <td> tag in which
your navigation graphics are loaded. Then your visitor can actually
see most of your navigation links without having to scroll.
(C.) Centered Text
------------------
Centered text is much harder to read than text which resides against a
static left margin. The content on PozoBoxes is centered, you might
want to reconsider that and make it align to the left of that table
cell to make it easier for your visitor to follow and read.
"Centered text also doesn't look as good as flush-left text because
the space surrounding the text is divided between the left and right
sides of each line, instead of being concentrated to the right of the
text." (See: "Eleven Common Web Page Design Frustrations")
- http://www.newentrepreneur.com/Resources/Articles/12_Com_Mis/12_com_mis.html
(D.) Text navigation on every page
----------------------------------
As discussed above, make it easy for both your visitors and search
engine crawlers by including (at least) text links on every page.
(E.) Page Background
--------------------
This is purely an aesthetic suggestion, but the grey box in your page'
background competes with the site's content. It becomes difficult to
read the text against that grey.
You might want to fade that out to about 20% opacity so the content is
easily read. Your content is far more important than background for
both your visitor and any search engine crawler.
You might want to take look at the page under a resolution of 1024x768
pixels, as the background starts to repeat on the right side of the
monitor at that resolution. This is easily corrected by making it a
bit wider, or by loading it using CSS and only repeating downwards,
instead of the default tiling.
Search Engine Optimization
==========================
As noted above, many of the basic elements of good design and HTML can
only help in both search engine placement and in page rank.
In addition, in your previous question
- http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=222361
several suggestions were made regarding optimizing your site for
inclusion in search engines.
Since that time, the HTML Gear site has lost its Google PageRank,
since it is nothing more than a reciprocal link (or linking scheme) As
was pointed out, you can be penalized for participating in such
schemes.
"... certain actions such as cloaking, writing text that can be seen
by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the
sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in permanent removal
from our index."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#B3
Establishing Links
==================
There are many ways of establishing links which can only be beneficial
to you. While these methods do take time, they also help in
establishing credibility and help with your page rank.
You have the right idea in approaching real estate sites, home
builders, etc. But you can also approach others, such as relocation
specialists, home/house packers, etc., to request a link (even a
reciprocal link), which will help solve your linking issues without
harming your search engine positioning or page rank.
Other possibilities are storage sites, sites with regard to parenting
and other sites related to the 'problems' of moving. There is no harm
in reciprocal linking, the harm is when you are linking to sites which
are nothing but a link farm.
Just to check this, a search under "moving tips" provided these sites
which do have a page rank:
* Moving Tips & Checklist
- http://www.2c.com/wb_hrpages/hr_gen_moving.html
And remember, it takes time. You may not see results for as long as 8
or even 12 weeks.
Articles on Link Popularity
===========================
A couple of excellent articles on how to establish the right kind of
links are available in Traffick's "Ten Steps to Building Links to Your
Site", Craig Fifield - 5/3/2002
- http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=77
and "The Right Way to Improve Link Popularity", By Paul J. Bruemmer -
4/14/2002 -
- http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=41
Notice both articles offer suggestions which can be easily adapted for
PozoBoxes without resorting to link farms. They both point out the
differences and offer easy ways to get started to the kind of linking
search engines prefer.
Submission to Search Engines
============================
You will want to submit your site to the search engines by hand, and
NOT use any automated system.
For directories, such as DMOZ and others, ensure you dig down deep
enough to make it into your category. That will both help you get
listed and once listed, enable you to be picked up by other search
engines who use those services.
Keeping Up With The Search Engines
==================================
It's a fact of life that just about the time one figures they have
this search engine optimization thing all figured out, the search
engines will change their algorithms or something else enough to make
it all confusing once again.
To keep up with the "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" of search
engine optimization, check in with both Danny Sullivan's Search Engine
Watch -
- http://www.searchenginewatch.com
and Webmaster World -
- http://webmasterworld.com
Shari Thurow's book, "Search Engine Visibility", with a forward by
Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch, is available on Amazon or
Barnes & Noble. Her accompanying website to use in conjunction with
the book is here:
- http://www.searchenginesbook.com/
The Link Exchange Digest, one of the first and longest-running
Internet marketing and search engine/linking newsletters, is an
excellent tool with information beneficial to most small business
owners, with contributions by successful small business owners. It is
free to subscribe, and there is always some helpful information to be
derived from each issue. You can subscribe by mailing to
led-join-request@list.audettemedia.com.
The Adventive lists have been taken over by Andrew Bourland under his
new enterprise, Up2Speed. Andrew Bourland who also started ClickZ and
other informative websites. The I-Sales, I-Search and I-Design lists
currently have search engine discussions going, and you may want to
subscribe to those lists to help stay current. The Up2Speed
subscription page is here:
- http://www.up2speed.com/
You may be pleasantly surprised with how many ideas and new "friends"
you may find by becoming a subscriber to those lists.
Ask for Reinstatement:
======================
Don't forget to ask for reinstatement, as my colleague mentioned in
answer to your previous question.
Search terms used:
- website design + above the fold
- effective web design
- accessibility standards
- moving tips
- moving checklists
- web design for search engines
Employing the design changes above and linking with other sites which
are NOT link farms should help you with getting listed and on your
way.
Best regards,
Serenata |
,
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