what SPECIFIC ACTIONS can i do to make my website come up first when
searched by the  subject words "rehoboth photographer". i have done
the obvious by going to various search engines and "listing" my
website with these words but find that other photographers NOT LOCATED
IN REHOBOTH (that's a city in delaware)consistently come up before mine.
my website is www.atlanticportraits.com
p.s. i don't really want to use an outside company to do this(contact
search engines, etc)as i am very unsure of their efficiency.

Greetings!

Well, you appear to have done quite well on your own - 5th at Google
for those terms, 3rd at Altavista.  Getting those last spots will be
tough.  You already have good meta-tags, clean HTML and good
descriptive text in the site, mentioning your keywords.  Remember, you
are already 'above the fold' in the listings - in the first 5 entries.

Two specific actions you can take are:

1) Make the page fully HTML 4.01 Transitional compliant.  This mens
'alt tagging' your images.  This will have two benefits: 1) Easier for
search engines to parse, and 2) gives the search engines something to
index for the images.  This may help some.

http://validator.w3.org/

2) Google puts the pages in order of their page rank, which is
determined in part by how many other, external, pages link to the
page.  Google only knows about 2 pages that link to yours, indicating
that it isn't that popular.  atbeach.com, the #1 ranked domain, has
over 1,500 pages linking to it.  The number 2 domain,
www.camprehoboth.com, has about 150 pages that link to it.

So, to increase your search ranking, get other sites that are indexed
by Google to link to yours.  How?  Send out press releases to area
newsletters, Chamber of Commerce sites, etc.  Sign guest books. Ask
folks you know.  Write to sites specializing in your area of interest.
 Make sure the links include the term you want indexed by Google - in
this case, "rehoboth photographer".

If you wanted to be unethical, you could register a few spare domains,
and have them speak highly of your work, with lots of links to your
site.

Become involved in the internet. Join Usenet newsgroups and make
topical postings that refer to your URL.  Join e-mail lists pertaining
to your subject matter and make topical postings that refer to your
URL.  Answer photography related questions on e-mail lists and Usenet.
 Point folks to parts of your website in your topical answers.

Give back to the community.  Right now, you have a nice sales
brochure, but nothing compelling to draw people (or links!) to your
site.  Put up parts of your website that will encourage people to link
to it.  Sample (free) photos.  Desktop backgrounds.  Area information.
 A discussion board about the ocean and photography.  Host a photo
contest.  Make the site compelling - give folks a reason to visit
other than to buy photography services from you. Also, make sure
Google indexes all of your pages.  It appears that none of the
internal pages on your site are indexed.  Most likely, they have no
links to them from outside your site.

Google says: "if other pages don't link to them, we can't assign them
a PageRank".
://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html

I hope this is helpful to you; if you need further information, please
request an answer clarification.

Your sites links:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&num=30&q=link:TRHrxG-bLtIC:www.atlanticportraits.com/

atbeach.com links (#1)
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&num=30&q=link:F3r8GDizt9MC:www.atbeach.com/

www.camprehoboth.com (#2)
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&num=30&q=link:6Z41bbol9GoC:www.camprehoboth.com/

Further Reading Of Interest:

Keywords and Search Engines
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=13358

Search Engine Ranking
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=25763


Search Terms Used
search engine @ answers.google.com
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=search&q=search+engine&qtype=all

timely answer with good suggestions. i wish i could give stars to the
"comments" from others as well since they gave as good an answer with
different ideas. especially appreciated the link given by jharokha to
an article that is exactly what i'm after. wenglang-ga, morris-ga,
inquisitive-ga and xemion's suggestions are also very good. got more
than my moneys worth. google answers is a very cool idea--an
intellectual ebay.

rehoboth-ga,

Put photographer in the HTML <TITLE> of your page. You've probably
noticed that you're already #1 in Google for Reheboth portrait,
because the word "portrait" appears in the title, but not
"photographer." You can just add "Reheboth Photographer" to the
beginning of your current title, and I gaurantee that will do it. It's
a poorly kept secret, but when you want your page to appear for a
given search term, putting that termin the title is the only way to
go. If you're unsure if that's the term you want. check out the
article about search engine terminology at
http://www.fonerbooks.com/adwords.htm

morris-ga

You might also want to do some work on your keyword and title
metatags. They are good, but they could be better. First you need to
determine the search terms for which you most want to come up in the
search engines. Assuming that "rehoboth photographer" is the term you
want to optimize for, make sure that this exact phrase shows up both
in your title (preferably at the beginning) and in your keywords:

For example:

Your current title: portraits on the beach in Rehoboth Beach Delaware
by Atlantic Portraits

Title optimized for term "rehoboth photographer":  Rehoboth
Photographer - Portraits Taken on Rehoboth and other Atlantic Beaches

Current keywords:
Rehoboth Beach,rehoboth
beach,beach,photo,photographer,delaware,portrait,photography,picture,ocean,de,dewey,bethany,fenwick
island,lewes,portraiture

To improve your keywords you should remove the commas and use spaces
instead (this allows you to list words in an order that also creates
phrases. You should also make sure that any word that you include in
your keywords also exists in the text on your page - the higher, the
better.

Optimized keywords: rehoboth photographer rehoboth beach portraits
beach photography delaware photographers family photographer dewey
beach bethany fenwick island lewes

A good way to decide which search terms are most popular is to use the
search term suggestion tool at Overture:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

You should also be sure to include the phrase "rehoboth photographer"
in the text of your Web page near the top and on more than one
occasion. Also, as wengland-ga stated you should be sure to ask people
that link to you to use that phrase for their hyperlink.

Here are some very useful sources on search engine optimization:
http://websearch.about.com/cs/optimization/index.htm
http://webdesign.about.com/library/weekly/aa013101a.htm
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/intro.html
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/submit.html

Good luck!

inquisitive-ga

Just a short note, I have lots of experience with search engine
optimization and have a number of high rankings in my portfolio.  I'm
not really allowed to share more information on websites I've done
here, but I can give you a few free tips.


"If you wanted to be unethical, you could register a few spare
domains,
and have them speak highly of your work, with lots of links to your
site."

DON'T DO THAT!  No more than three links from a site like that, max. 
Google will penalize your site if you pull stunts attempting to
influence their results.  It's one thing to optimize your site, but
just be very careful with anything you do that repeats over and over
(links or keywords).  I really wouldn't define this as "unethical"
though.

Unless you're a professional, I would not attempt to use multiple
domains or websites.  To be used correctly, you have to really know
what you're doing.


When you do create links to your website, create them in this format:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com">your keywords</a>  

That helps a LOT!


My next tip is to move your keywords the beginning of your "title". 
Your title is the text up at the very top of the window.  Currently
for me it says "Google Answers".  That title and the links to your
website ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT thing that Google considers when it
ranks your website.  Get lots and lots of links!


Just follow the tips I stated above and look at the two Google Answer
links wengland-ga gave you and you'll be fine.  Give it some time.  It
might take weeks or months for changes you make now to take effect. 
The keyword you're going for isn't really competitive so you shouldn't
have that much trouble with it.

If you're really serious about this, I suggest contacting a
professional.  Search for "search engine optimization" on Google. 
Obviously the ones that come up first are the best, so use those :-)


If you want to do it yourself, I would *highly* recommend WebPosition
Gold.  All the pros use it.  It's the best (and about the only)
software in the business.  It gives you the tools you need to get your
websites ranked high in the search engines.
http://www.webposition.com/


I hope this has helped!  Thanks!

xemion-ga ~ Google Researcher

rehoboth-ga,

This site contains more information than the answers and comments
which you have received so far. The site is a story about a husbad
wife team who wanted to bump the search engine ratings on their
website.

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/23/index1a.html

Hope it helps.

--

If you are willing to do some digging..

1)http://www.webmasterworld.com/ - The best forum on the net about
Search engines optmisation

There are others.. Searchengine news ,Panada etc..