Search Engine Listings

[soundgeek]

Hi All

 

Sorry to bother you all with this question but it is somewhat irritating me. My disco website (discosussex.co.uk) is ranking really high on Yahoo search, but on google - I am no where near the top

Any ideas?

Oli

[Guest lightnix]

Have you tried submitting your URL to Google?

 

http://www.google.com/submit_content.html

 

See also... Google Webmaster Tools

[StevieR]

Or you can opt to pay for your search engine advertising.

 

For the free listings, different search engines apply different rules to rank page content. To understand and leverage these rules takes a lot of time and effort. There are obviously companies who specialise in search engine optimisation but again you will pay for this service.

 

I purchased some specialist software to help manage our site's rankings across multiple search engines and this helped a lot. It is not an overnight process though and takes time to get it right. We're still changing things now!

 

Steve

[Guest lightnix]

My disco website (discosussex.co.uk) is ranking really high on Yahoo search, but on google - I am no where near the top :D

FWIW I just searched for disco sussex on Google UK and found you in 9th position on the first page - so you must be doing something right

 

For discos in sussex you are 8th on page 3 - still not bad :up:

 

Your Google Page Rank is zero, though :(

 

As StevieR said, software solutions are worth looking at. I've heard that Web Position Gold is quite good.

[ClanMan]

Search Engine Optimisation is a black art in itself and no-one can ever guarantee high rankings (no matter what some SEO companies will tell you) but there are a couple of simple tips that should see you get a decent ranking.

 

Firstly, don't get too clever by planting your keywords all over the page. Google's engine is clever enough to spot when words are being used out of context (have you ever seen those websites with "disco sussex" repeated a hundred times at the bottom of the page? The best way to build your page is to write good copy first and foremost. This has two effects: (1) Google's engine sees your keywords in the correct context, and (2) people enjoy coming to your site, eventually increasing your PageRank. Bear in mind that Google places high relevance on headings in your copy. Try to ensure that your keywords are mentioned within HTML Header Tags on your page.

 

What is PageRank and how do I increase it? If you haven't got it already, download the Google Toolbar for your browser. Right in the middle of the toolbar is a menu item listing the current page's PageRank. If the green bar is small (or non-existent) the PageRank is low and Google will treat the site appropriately. If that green bar is filled all the way to the right, Google thinks it's a pretty good site and will push it right up the listings.

 

One of the great features of the PageRank on the Google toolbar is the "Backward Links" menu item. This shows you what sites are linked are yours. Having a lot of sites linked to yours shows Google that your site is popular and relevant to your visitors. I'm sure lots of sites contact you and offer links; be careful to balance the amount of links to your site with the quality of those links. Google is clever enough to spot link farms and poor-quality link exchange systems.

 

This was mentioned before but do submit your site to Google. In fact, sell your soul to Google: get a Google sitemap, use Google Analytics (I see you're already doing that), use all the Google webmaster tools you can.

 

Finally, and if you only try one technique try this one, analyse your competitors. The sites that come back on the top of the rankings for your keywords are obviously doing something right, so analyse it, copy it and better it. Have they got better copy? Have they got their keywords mentioned more often in the copy? Look at their backward links: what sites are linked to them and how can you get linked by the same sites?

 

I hope this helps a bit.

[Bryson]

Eeek! Autoplay music on your website..... You probably deserve to not be ranked by Google..

 

(I'm sort of joking, but for pitys sake get rid of the autoplay music.)

 

Anyway, as a means of helping, I've made the link in your sig clickable. You'd be amazed how much that helps. The Blue Room, by it's very nature, is a very "connected" site, so it scores high in Google rankings. I often find it listed for the oddest things.

[indyld]

A site: search shows that Google has 31 pages indexed.

 

The site ranks for keyphrases that you would expect, looking at the "on page" factors of your site. - "hardwired entertainment" and things like that. As others have said, it also ranks for other more generic local phrases.

 

You just need a few decent backlinks and to learn some really basic SEO - which is all over the web.

 

There is also a lot of cr*p put about too and I would be wary of using "magic" SEO programs or software. Every SEO client I have worked with who had tried that ended up at least out of pocket, if not getting penalised by the search engines.

 

Follow ClanMans advice you are half way there and doing all you can without professional help. If you really need that, drop me a PM if you like.

[Guest lightnix]

Having a lot of sites linked to yours shows Google that your site is popular and relevant to your visitors.

That's true to a point, but Google also checks its ranking of the pages that link to you. Links into your site from high-ranking (and relevant) sites will do more to boost your own ranking, than those from low-ranking pages. Choose your incoming links with a little care - quality, not quantity, is the key :** laughs out loud **:

 

I read somewhere, that a page rank of 4/10 is "good" - after that, you're doing well. This is partly because each single point increase in page rank represents a ten-fold increase in the score that Google tots up to calculate that rank :blink:

[soundgeek]

Thank you all so much.

I've tried the paid ads - and to not much avail really. Just seemed to eat my money and not much else. I think other disco companies must've been clicking on it or something. Anyway, what does work is targeted facebook paid ads - because it just targets the right people (eg engaged people in my local area) and this has proved really successful!

Either way, bookings for disco stuff are beginning to come in fast now (maybe all the hours submitting to 100s of websites has paid off...), and although Im more of an audio engineer and that is what I want to do at uni, discos are great pocket money!

 

With regards to the music on the home page - yesss I know its realllly tacky so I might make it a "click to start playing" rather than an auto-play when my web designer dude (www.olliekett.com) is around.

 

Also, its not my actual site that is 9th on google when searching "disco sussex", its a site that links to my site... oh well better than nothing.

 

Thank you all again

Oli