Hi esoteric...
Keep in mind that I'm not an expert in search engine
optimization. That said, I welcome input and correction
from those researchers who are.
The javascript menus don't represent too much of a problem,
as I understand it, as long as the ALT text is there, and
echoes the keywords on the menu. Yours seem to be in order,
so the Google-bot will pick up on those even if the menu
is composed of images which are unreadable by the bot.
What the bot won't do is pick up on the text in the large
number of images you are using, so words like 'sneezeguard'
won't be noticed on your 'miscellaneous' page:
http://acrylicparts.com/misc.html
This is noted by journalist-ga in her answer here:
"Then, on your page, your keyword text is in graphic form
which a search engine spider cannot read - it reads the
text, not the picture."
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=162597
You could, of course, include that word in the keywords for
that page, but I'm told the bot likes it better if the
keywords are also able to be found on the page. Additionally,
the keywords in the title tags carry even more weight with the
bot, and it is helpful if the keywords in the title tags for
each page are also found as text in the body of the page, as
noted by researcher robertskelton-ga in his answer here:
"Google places a lot of importance on the keywords within the
title tags of each web page. I suggest that, if possible,
change the title tag of every page in your site to make each
one unique. Make sure that the title:
- is as concise as possible
- is using words which also appear in the text of the page
- contains the types of words folk might search for
- (if possible) matches the text used in links pointing to it,
internal and external"
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=190164
webadept-ga has a great suggestion for optimizing your keywords
in accordance with the words people are actually using to find
your page, which can be detected using a Perl program which
analyzes the stats from your weblogs:
"The best thing to do is to look at your web logs, and to see
what people are using to find your website now. There is a
good program for this if you or if you have someone who knows
Perl can install it on your site. It gives great stats, and
has all the graphics and bars you would expect from a log
stats program. However it also keeps track of what search
engines people are using to find you and which search queries
they are using to get there. Using a tool like this will help
you optimize your site in the right direction. It could be
that those are the best key words for your site, but why guess
about it?"
"You can see the program in action at:"
http://www.lucidmatrix.com/cgi/awstats.cgi
"Now, when you look at that, the graphics aren't going to be
working on that link, but that's the only way I can show it
to you right now. Normally it looks great. The program is
free and works really well."
"You can get a copy of it at:"
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
I also noticed that the title tags on your pages don't
always reflect the content of the pages accurately.
The title tag for your miscellaneous page says 'Acrylic Products'
(by the way, 'vinyl' is mispelled in the text on the picture).
And all the words in the picture won't be visible to the bot
as existing in the body of the page, even though you have them
in the keywords for the page (Dessert cart, wine rack and shelves,
menu board, cash register cover, catamaran windshelds, church
podiums, incubator, aluminum sign blanks):
http://acrylicparts.com/misc.html
The title tag for your trophy page says 'Acrylic Fabrication'
but doesn't mention 'trophy' or 'trophies':
http://acrylicparts.com/trophy.html
The title tag for your furniture page says 'Acrylic Furniture'
but there is no text on the page which says 'acrylic furniture'.
The word 'furniture' is included as an ALT tag in a couple of
mouseovers, but not 'acrylic furniture'.
And, as you noted, there is a significant lack of links from
outside sites. I found only one site linking to you (though
Google only shows inbound links from pages with PageRank of
3 or higher), which was http://naturallyfloral.com/
This came from using Google's 'link' function:
://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Aacrylicparts.com
This is certainly something which you can aspire to change,
since a larger number of high-ranking sites having links to
your site will raise your PageRank considerably.
Some additional links which may be helpful:
Google Technology
://www.google.com/technology/
Google's PageRank and how to make the most of it
http://webworkshop.net/pagerank.html
Google Under the Scope
http://www.searchengineworld.com/spiders/google_faq.htm
PageRank: Bringing Order to the Web
http://hci.stanford.edu/~page/papers/pagerank/
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper-textual Web Search Engine
http://www-db.stanford.edu/%7Ebackrub/google.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/searches.html
Search Engines Guide (lots of useful links):
http://www.mimech.com/web-search/
This should give you some ideas with which to begin
improving your site's rank.
Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by means of a dialog
established through the "Request for Clarification" process.
sublime1-ga
Searches done, via Google Answers:
optimize site search engine java OR javascript
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=search&q=optimize+site+search+engine&qtype=all&btnG=Google+Search
optimize site search engine robertskelton-ga
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=search&q=optimize+site+search+engine+%2Bjava+OR+javascript&qtype=all&btnG=Google+Search |
