[kitchenman]

how can i get my website found by search engines this is all way over my head ive built a site www.hfhimprovements.co.uk which id like your views on but dont understand how people find it, steve

[Dvotee]

Hi there,

A few pointers for you in my opinion;

1. Obviously you need to submit your site to the search engines. This can be done manually or via various software programmes that are out there but some search engines don't really like automated submissions. Personally, I do all my sites via automated process and I've never encountered a problem.

2. I would suggest you change your page titles (in the blue bar at the top) Search engines like to see page titles that are not just your company name/index.html etc. Try to be as descriptive as possible. If you look at the Xilo pages you see a very well thought out page title for each page. Review a few sites and you will see what I mean.

3. Meta tags: Again, depending who you are some people feel these are a waste of time, others do not. It is reported that more and more search engines ignore meta tags but I feel they are worth while.

4. Keywords are important in my opinion but again others may disagree. Work on keywords and try to incorporate them into your home page.

5. Search engines like incoming links so if you know of anyone that has a site, see if they will be kind enough to place a link to your site. Of course they may ask the same in return.

6. On your pictures, use the 'alt' tag to describe your picture. This is also good practice for anyone that would use a reader.

6. SEO: This is an expensive option and is usually done over a 12 month period or so.

7. Bear in mind that when you submit a site to the search engines, it is not an overnight thing and you won't start appearing immediately. It takes time and all search engines vary.

In my opinion you may struggle with high rankings purely down the fact that your home page has no text on it and your page title is not text, it is an image in fact you have no text at all. I'm sure that there will be people on the forum that can give you guidance as I am certainly no expert in this field.

There a few things to chew over, hope it helps

Paul

[jnovak]

All good advice ...

As Paul says, your site is just made up of image/s and no text... not even any Alt-tags on the images or on your links. This is a bad idea as far as search-engines go, as they rely on "text" to index/rank websites... and yours has none!?

For your links I would also include the link to cover the word as well as the button, as I found that confusing myself.

You can use this application to show you how Google "sees" your site, just type "www.hfhimprovements.co.uk" into the box and click on "Diagnostic View" and you will see the problem. Compare that with "www.xilo.net" and you will see the difference...

Poodle Predictor - See your site like Google does. Simulate search engines and predict your Google listings.

I would say that there is only one major search engine to worry about... Google. You can submit your site to Google at..

Add your URL to Google (UK version)

You should also include "Yahoo" and "MSN" in there ... the others will then follow, with time.

But in reality there is probably little point to doing that before you redesign it, with the suggestions... to include some relevant "text" on there.


P.S.

Thought you might want to read Google's advice...
Webmaster Help Centre - How can I create a Google-friendly site?

and if you tab-down to "Things to Avoid" , third paragraph .

John