Google's Page Ranking & Actinic V7

[KarenBM]

Hi all,

Our website has been active for about 2 months, yet we have a page rank of a big fat zero in Google. I have followed all advise re keywords, page titles, repetitive wording, hard coded links on home (index) page (using Actinic brochure page) etc etc, yet no change. Someone told me that Google only indexes every 6 months, is this true?

I was under the impression that Actinic was search engine optimised?

Many thanks in advance.

[wjcampbe]

Karen, the PageRank you see using the Google toolbar is not accurate - some say deliberately so, and is best ignored. All that really matters is how you appear in the search results for the phrases you are targetting.

There is a Google effect known as the sandbox, that suggests any new site will not rank until it is proved to be stable, and has obtained incoming links from established websites. Two months is not a long time in Internet terms, my site sat in the sandbox effect for six months. The only thing you can do just now that is productive, is to concentrate on getting incoming links placed on existing websites that are relevant to the topic of your site. You can start by adding links to the text directory in my signature and to Jo's (Pinbrook) directory - look for a forum thread called quality link farm.

regards,

[KarenBM]

Hi Bill,

Thank for the reply which was very reassuring. We have already added hundreds of incoming links (time consuming or what!) yet Google insist there are no incoming links to be found! Could it be that blasted "sandbox" again?

Kind Regards
Karen

[wjcampbe]

Yes and no. It's another Google thing that is inaccurate (being kind here). Both Yahoo and MSN give a much mor accurate picture of the actual links to your website. The linkdomain command can be much more accurate too, since it does not restrict the list to links which land on one page.

The site:www.charme dcardsandcrafts.co.uk command will show how many page indexes you have. In G - I found 496 for you - so you are well indexed. The rest comes with time. I read just yesterday that most e-commerce sites take a minimum of 9 months to a year to really get off the ground, so just keep adding content, finding new link opportunities and praying - just like the rest of us.

[pinbrook]

I was under the impression that Actinic was search engine optimised?

no site can come already search engine optimised. The thing with Actinic is that it is search engine friendly.

This means that it is fairly easy to add the finishing touches which are important such as page titles etc.

I tend to focus my efforts on actually searching for the keywords I want to rank well on rather than worry to much about page rank alone (which as Bill says is a black art at the mo).

Give us an example of a keyword you would like to rank highly on..

[Buzby]

View this forum for all the information on Google pagerank.

http://forums.seochat.com/f47/sc8e37...8e61ab0fcc8c23

Kind regards

Jason
www.qualitysilver.co.uk
www.quality-titanium.co.uk

[Dek]

page rank

Do you have stats on your site?
If you do then you should be able to see how many visitors (not hits) and by which terms you are being found. This way you can tune your keywords within your pages.
When you have links inbound to your site you need to maximise the impact of this by using good quality sites and good anchor text.
eg. listing your site on every directory under the sun will not neccessarily give you good ranking, the sites score more if they themselves are relevant to your topic and have a good rank too.
The anchor text should match the keyword phrases that you want to rank highly on.
The page title carries a lot of weight with google so put your inbound anchor keyword phrases in the titles of the relevant pages.
Actinic allows you to manipulate the site very well for optimisation.
I totally agree with other comment on not getting hung up on ranking though! I have a site with a ranking of 4/10 that hardly ever gets visited where as I have some with less rank that get many hits a day.

The best advice I can give is to read up on SEO if you want to do this your self or if you are serious about making some money from your site then get an SEO dedicated company involved and let them do the work. It is a skill and very time consuming and the rules for the top ranking sites changes all the time.

[KarenBM]

Thanks all for your replies, they are much appreciated. I am trying to rank highly on keyword searches such as "Card making" and "Scrapbooking", but a search on either does not show our site at all on any of the search engines! This is very frustrating as I have tried to include both phrases extensively both in title, description and body.

What can I do to get the site to show on those keyword searches?

Thank you all in advance.

Kind Regards
Karen

[wjcampbe]

Have a look at your product descriptions - is there any mention of 'used in card making' OR 'used in scrapbooking' OR 'your card making kit is not complete without'?

All the meta keywords tags in the world will not help a search engine rank you for content that does not actually appear on the page, either in the product descriptions or a comprehensive descriptive fragment.

[jont]

It may also be worth creating new sections with the page names of "card making" and "scrapbooking" - use lots of fragments to give advice on how to make cards, what is scrap booking, definitions, hints and tips and also textual links through to relevent products that as Bill says also have those keywords in the product dscription. Having content other than just products will also add weight to your site and get people to return more often.

Maybe have a monthly page that has a step-by-step project on how to create something - again have lots of textual links through to the products needed to make the project.... you could even have a special offer of a bundle of stuff needed to make this months tutorial! This could soon build up into a great archive resource for you visitors over the months.

[KarenBM]

Thanks guys, I'll include the key phrases a lot more in product descriptions - you are right, they don't feature enough. I already have a "What is Scrapbooking" section but I'll include more of the same. Thanks again.

Kind Regards
Karen

[Doc]

Karen
You would be well adviced to find a professional SEO company to help you...its a bit of a nightmare having to do this onesself...

[pinbrook]

Karen
You would be well adviced to find a professional SEO company to help you...its a bit of a nightmare having to do this onesself...

not good advice! it is very difficult to find a professional SEO company, so many of them just do auto submits on your behalf.

It is better to learn how to do the basics yourself then you can continue to tweak as your products change

[Dek]

Seo

If you are interested in having any SEO work done specifically with Actinic then I can help and give you a quote.

I used to do all this myself and have a good grounding with SEO, I then linked up with a dedicated SEO company that knew little of Actinic, over the past 9 months I have been working very closely with them and we are now in Partnership.

My company is called DNETS ltd and as you can see by my site, it is in desperate need of sorting out but I am that busy with my shopping sites I just have not got time.

The main site at the minute for us is http://www.thehockeystop.co.uk and this scores well accross all search engines for many phrases.

This site is growing all the time and has definately benefitted from the SEO work.

We have done a lot of experimenting with various techniques and are still learning, SEO changes all the time and you need to be specialised or dedicated to it to keep up.

So as I say, if you want help then contact me on actinic@dnets.co.uk and I will give you a quote and a run down of what I can do for you.

[MySweeper]

Warning...Stay away from Verica.

http://www.verica.com

This SEO company did absolutely nothing on two Web sites for me.