No Google Search results

Hanger

I've followed all the obvious steps for appearing in web searches (keywords on photos and galleries, registering my site, posting on the forums) but you still cannot google "hanger images" and have anything appear, even though it's in all my keywording. Am I missing a step? How much visibility can I expect with smugmug? Thanks. :scratch

www.hangerimages.com

ivar

Hanger wrote:

I've followed all the obvious steps for appearing in web searches (keywords on photos and galleries, registering my site, posting on the forums) but you still cannot google "hanger images" and have anything appear, even though it's in all my keywording. Am I missing a step? How much visibility can I expect with smugmug? Thanks.

www.hangerimages.com

Your site is only 11 days old, and I'm sure some keywords are even younger. Your pages need to be indexed by Google first to get a result. Noone knows how long it takes, it's a google-secret.

I suggest just keep doing what you doing, but what a little while

Hanger

ivar wrote:

Your site is only 11 days old, and I'm sure some keywords are even younger. Your pages need to be indexed by Google first to get a result. Noone knows how long it takes, it's a google-secret.

I suggest just keep doing what you doing, but what a little while

I'll do that, I just wanted to make sure I'm on track. Thanks!

iamback

A few things you can do

Hanger wrote:

I've followed all the obvious steps for appearing in web searches (keywords on photos and galleries, registering my site, posting on the forums) but you still cannot google "hanger images" and have anything appear, even though it's in all my keywording. Am I missing a step? How much visibility can I expect with smugmug? Thanks.

www.hangerimages.com

A few things you could do as well, notably to solve some incorrect HTML code:

• You have a link tag (for a shortcut icon) in your body - that needs to be in the head area instead of the body area in your customization form.
• Way below (in what seems to be your footer customization), you have a whole extra head section; that doesn't belong there. remove the head tags, remove the meta Content-Type (SM already generates the same), and remove the title tag (there can be only one and SM already generates one); the meta formatter you can also do without. Then move what's left to your head customization area in your customization form.
• Also, the home page has very little indexable content. You have a textual h1 tag - very good. But what is it a heading for? A navigation menu, a slideshow (which cannot be indexed) and a footer. Keywords in document title, or meta tags do very little for your ranking if they don't also occur in the body text. So consider creating a subheading (h2) and a paragraph (p) with a little blurb that (in natural text) uses as many relevant keywords as possible. This should go right after your navigation bar block.

Then while you're still in Google's "sandbox" (it can take a month or so before a site becomes visible at all), ensure you have incoming links from other sites. The usual: another website you may have, blog postings or comments, forum posts (add your URL to your sig, including in this forum!), friends or other companies' websites...

And don't forget Google isn't the only search engine out there!

Hanger

iamback wrote:

A few things you could do as well, notably to solve some incorrect HTML code:

• You have a link tag (for a shortcut icon) in your body - that needs to be in the head area instead of the body area in your customization form.

When you say body, do you mean the CSS? I'm an html rookie, so bear with me. Thanks.

Hanger

iamback wrote:

A few things you could do as well, notably to solve some incorrect HTML code:

• Way below (in what seems to be your footer customization), you have a whole extra head section; that doesn't belong there. remove the head tags, remove the meta Content-Type (SM already generates the same), and remove the title tag (there can be only one and SM already generates one); the meta formatter you can also do without. Then move what's left to your head customization area in your customization form.!

Ok, I think I got all that switched. Not sure why I put it in my footer.

iamback wrote:

• Also, the home page has very little indexable content. You have a textual h1 tag - very good. But what is it a heading for? A navigation menu, a slideshow (which cannot be indexed) and a footer. Keywords in document title, or meta tags do very little for your ranking if they don't also occur in the body text. So consider creating a subheading (h2) and a paragraph (p) with a little blurb that (in natural text) uses as many relevant keywords as possible. This should go right after your navigation bar block.

Then while you're still in Google's "sandbox" (it can take a month or so before a site becomes visible at all), ensure you have incoming links from other sites. The usual: another website you may have, blog postings or comments, forum posts (add your URL to your sig, including in this forum!), friends or other companies' websites...

And don't forget Google isn't the only search engine out there!

I'll put together a blurb for the home page. I know I am hiding the keywords on my portfolio photos (since there are alot), do you know if that will interfere with crawlers? I also registered my site on other search engines.

I appreciate the advice!

dogwood

Hanger wrote:

How much visibility can I expect with smugmug?

Don't know about you, but my smugmug site comes up #1 when I search my name on google. Search "pete springer photos" and pretty much the entire first page listed on google is for me (some dgrin posts, some SM stuff, some blog stuff, etc). Soooo... results may vary but with time, I think you'll find search engine visibility with an SM site can be fairly high.

Hanger

dogwood wrote:

Don't know about you, but my smugmug site comes up #1 when I search my name on google. Search "pete springer photos" and pretty much the entire first page listed on google is for me (some dgrin posts, some SM stuff, some blog stuff, etc). Soooo... results may vary but with time, I think you'll find search engine visibility with an SM site can be fairly high.

Thanks Pete, I'm sure I need to be more patient. I'm wondering about the best way for my name to come up on relative searches, like "Tacoma photographer" or "seattle portrait photographer" stuff like that instead of my name.

iamback

Hanger wrote:

When you say body, do you mean the CSS? I'm an html rookie, so bear with me. Thanks.

I think you may have pasted that (favicon) line in your header box (for your visible page header, which is part of the body) - it should be in your head box (for stuff that goes in between the <head> and </head> tags).

In a nutshell: An HTML page basically has two sections, a "head" and a "body", each with an opening and a closing tag by that name. The body is what becomes visible (or audible) content, the head contains the document title, and can contain meta data, scripts and stylesheets.