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What more can I do to optimize my site? 1

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ilovestickers

ilovestickers

Programmer
Jul 2, 2005
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Hi there!

I've been trying since the end of Jan to optimize my site ( but nothing seems to work. My goals are to get a good search engine position (specifically for Google), and to get a reasonable page rank. However, as it stamds I am not even on the top ONE THOUSAND google results and my page rank has be stagnant at 2 for half a year and a few PR updates.

I have got lots of links, worked on my meta tages, title, etc, and improved my keyword ratio but it never makes the slightest difference.

This is my first website and I know I must be doing somethign wrong or not doing something as I have yet to see an improvement - especially not even being in the top 1000 results! I also have an ad words accounts.

I would very much appreciate anyone's advice!! Thank you all very much!

Krissy
 
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Your JavaScript Menu System is not helping.
Indeed, Google follow links to index, but can't see links hidden in the javascript menu. Turn javascript off, refresh your page, and you'll see what google is looking at.

The top line "Sticker Club, Stickers of the Month, Sticker Collections, Stickers by Mail, Scrapbooking Stickers, Kids Stickers Club - Stickers!!" should all be links to the pages relevent to the strings.

The navigation bar on the right under the flags are all images without alt tags, google uses the anchor text of links to a page as indication about what is about. Google's spider is blind, it needs that alt tags (also, they are part of the standard). Help google, deaf and people using text-only browsers get arround your site and use alt tags -- especially in links.

Contact other sites about stickers and ask to trade links.

[plug=shameless]
[/plug]
 
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Thank you Jstreich those are some great tips!! I am working on them now!

Chris - can you please tell mw how to get the link in your signature? I've tried html and bbc code and neither work. Thank you.


Thanks to everyone!
Krissy

http://www.i-love-stickers.com"]Sticker Club and FREE Stickers[/url]
 
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Thanks Chris for answering my question but, sorry, I cannot find the "Process TGML" on my "personal profile" page...and also using link instead of url didn't do the trick...so I must need to use the popup option you spoke of.

Is it possible I do not have this option or am I just not seeing it?

Thank you,
Krissy

[link="[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.i-love-stickers.com"[/URL]]Sticker Club and FREE Stickers[/url]
 
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look below the message box on this page [smile]

the format is

[*link URI]Anchor Text[/*link]
("*" are added to break the auto linking)

No equals sign and no quotes, unlike the usual BBCode





Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.
 
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Hi again!

I'm back (still very committed). I've been working hard to optimize my site as best I can. I have now done the H1, H2, H3 heading, added some more key words, cleaned up my coding, etc.

As such, I have gone from not being on Yahoo or MSN to being in the top 5. However, I am not even in the first 20 PAGES in Google!

I hoping you would have some more suggestions on how I can continue to further optimize my website, ? My goal is to get a decent result in Google and to increase my page rank from 2 (where it has been stuck since Feb 05) to a 3 or better for the next update.

Thank you!
Krissy

Sticker Club and FREE Stickers
 
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The stock answer is if you are doing well in MSN and Yahoo but not in Google then links are the missing ingredient, also your site is likely to still be in the aging delay

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.
 
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That Javascript menu could still be a barrier to spiders (and some people) browsing the site, though I see that many of the links in it are duplicated elsewhere in regular links. Consider using a CSS-based alternative like .

Not really an SEO point, but since your site is (in part) aimed at children, you should consider labelling it at . It might get you over some "parental control" content-blocking hurdles. Another non-SEO thing is to use more CSS (at least for formatting, instead of all those <font> tags) - it could make your pages a lot smaller.


-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd
 
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Hi Again!

As you can see i've been working on this consistenty since June :) I keep using the same thread just so everyone can see what i've been doing, what's been suggested, etc.

Well my site looks a LOT better. I am ranking in the top 3 on MSN and Yahoo but I am not even in the top 1000 for Google. My Alexa rating is also great (i think) for a Sticker Site at around 350,000. Last month it was in the top 100,000 :)

What I am concerned about is Google. Not really my page rank (although that would be nice), but getting some sort of a decent SERP. I don't know what further to do.

I used RustyBrick to see how my PR was heading and it said for MONTH that it was going to go to a 4 next update...and now this week it's predicting a 3 and I didn't do anything.

I am in the process of finishing the IRCA approval as suggested. I just have to get it on every single page. The one suggestion I don't want to do it to change my popup left menu. All the links are found elsewhere on my homepage anyhow.

What can I do about my Google position please? I've been tryign very hard but nothing works. Sites that are not half as good come up in the op results for my key words and yet I can't get in the top 1000. Also, finally, the sandbox should be for sure over, bc the site's over a yr old.

Thank you to everyone in advance!!
Krissy

Sticker and Sticker Clubs

Enter our Contst to win 1 of 5 packs of 10,000 Stickers every month!
 
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This isn't really related to your SE problems, but I was wondering is there really that much money in stickers?

Actually, I know that when some were offered for free on a site I manage the hits went through the roof!

Suggestion to get some incoming links.. if you don't do so already, offer something for free.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Buy Languedoc wines in the UK
 
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Hi IloveStickers,

If you don't me jumping in .... I'm not an expert on SEO - I just lurk in this forum to learn from the experts.

Regarding getting incoming links: When I started out with my latest web site, I spent many hours writing to web masters to ask for reciprocal links. Most of it was a waste of time. A few people took the trouble to respond and set up a link (for which I'm grateful), but most didn't.

I'm now convinced that the best way to get incoming links is to do notning -- except concentrate on creating the sort of content that other sites will want to link to. If your content is informative and interesting enough, other web masters will eventually find it and link to it on their own initiative. It'll take time, but it will happen.

I'm not saying you should never approach a site for a link -- just don't expect it be very productive.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk
 
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Maybe Google doesn't like that you've got two descriptions and sets of keywords:
Code: 
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<title>Sticker Club and Stickers of the Month Club</title>
<META name="description" content="Sticker club and kids Stickers of the month club. Get 100's of Stickers for only $10. Sandylion, Mrs. Grossman, Stickopotomus, etc. Great for scrapbooking!">
<META name="KEYWORDS" content="stickers, sticker, sticker club, kids sticker club, stickers of the month club, stickers, i love stickers, i-love-stickers, stickers of the month, sticker contest, free stickers, sandylion sticker club, sandylion, mrs grossman, stickopotomus, kids stickers, kids bargain sticker">
<LINK REL=STYLESHEET TYPE="text/css" HREF="style.css">

<head>
<title>Sticker Club and Stickers of the Month Club</title>
<META name="description" content="Sticker club and kids Stickers of the month club. Get 100's of Stickers for only $10. Sandylion, Mrs. Grossman, Stickopotomus, etc. Great for scrapbooking!">
<META name="KEYWORDS" content="stickers, sticker, sticker club, kids sticker club, stickers of the month club, stickers, i love stickers, i-love-stickers, stickers of the month, sticker contest, free stickers, sandylion sticker club, sandylion, mrs grossman, stickopotomus, kids stickers, kids bargain sticker">
(That's not a full DOCTYPE either, not that Google will care)

It could also be that as you've got 600-odd lines (about 22K of file size) of scripts, table markup and other stuff before you get to the main content of the page, the spider isn't crawling far enough to index it. That would be a shame, as you've got a lot of tasty spider food in there in the shape of articles, testemonials etc.

Now you might not want to dive right now into a full CSS layout, but there are a few quick wins you can make:
[ul]
[li]Move all those bits of javascript into external files (or maybe just one big file if all scripts are used on all pages). Then you can use just a single line of code for each one:
Code: 
<script type="text/javascript" src="somefile.js"></script>
[/li]
[li]Weed out all the <font> tags in your markup, use CSS instead[/li]
[li]Try to reduce the number of tables used, and get rid of spacer images too (use CSS margins/padding instead).[/li]
[li]Validate your pages, invalid ones probably won't deter the spiders, but why risk it?[/li]
[/ul]
If you're not already doing so, I suggest you use the php include command to incorporate all the standard content in your pages. Put all the markup that goes between the <body> and the start of the actual content in one file, put everything between the end of the content and the </body> in another. Your pages will then look like this:
Code: 
<html>
<head>
<title>I Love Stickers</title>
... etc ...
</head>
<body>
<?php
include 'top.php';
?>
<p>Only $10 for 100's of STICKERS in one-time OR monthly Sticker Packs</p>
... etc ...
<?php
include 'bottom.php';
?>
</body>
</html>
This will make it much easier to make global changes to the look of your site in the future.

Overall, I think your site looks rather "busy". A simpler layout might look more professional, and attract more links. However a simple layout can be paradoxically difficult for us non-designers to achieve! You might also try building pages aimed at particular interest groups - e.g. a page about Pokemon stickers that you can ask Pokemon sites to link to.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd
 
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Hi again:

Tried to cut out a lot of the excess coding by using "includes" but it just ended up in a pile of error messages (unfortunately), so I restored it to the original way. A lot of the items taking up the lines of code are special features on one specific page...not to go on ever page.

I'm so confused...my site has much better content, looks WAY better, has been online longer, has a higher page rank, etc...AND i am number one on MSN top 3 for yahoo...and I cannot get in the top 1000 for Google.

Even if I could get the includes to finally work, would that really be the critical issue to solve my Google Problem? I have never spammed or sone any "illegal" practises, yet there seems to be nothing I can do to achieve any results.

It's so frustrating :S I really do appreciate everyone's help and suggestions for these past 6+ months, and should you have any more .. please let me know!

Thank you...and Thank you again Chris!

Krissy



Sticker and Sticker Clubs

Enter our Contst to win 1 of 5 packs of 10,000 Stickers every month!
 
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MSN and Yahoo have algo's that seem to give onpage factors higher value.

Google, weights offsite factors (links and anchor text, content of page that contains the links) higher. The more links on pages with related content and the right anchor text helps tremendously. Also google values the age of the link a lot more. Links from related hubs and authority sites also seem to work the best. Google is "about the links".

xtendscott
Home Improvement Watch | Cryosurgery | Walla Walla Portal | Walla Walla Martial Arts
 
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