General Wedding Chit Chat Thread... (Part 2)

picturecrazy wrote in post #3947874
yeah, but the question is.... sometimes googles sees it as good enough to include on page 1.... and then suddenly it'll drop to page 30! What on earth is going on???

using the same search terms? that is very odd. I don't know enough about google to answer that question.

Well..... I wasn't really thinking of get-togethers ..... I'm hardly the party animal I ever imagined myself to be. But certainly such gatherings work well for a lot of folks, and are good places to exhange ideas. I was pretty much just thinking of shows and exhibits.

Grace wrote in post #3947329
right!!! I'm looking forward to future get togethers...If someone has hotel information I'd love to go ahead and book my room..... PM me if you have too !

notapro wrote in post #3947912
using the same search terms? that is very odd. I don't know enough about google to answer that question.

yup, using the exact same search terms.

I see the exact same pages on every page all the time. why are theirs always consistent while mine bounces around like mad? argh!!! it annoys me so much!!

I'm going to go bang my head against the wall now. Stupid websites.

Jenn, you bang one side for webistes, I'll bang the other for PP

UGH!

We're going to have this wall demolished in no time.

I hear ya, sister!

I know someone on this list is from Indiana...I have a friend who needs to process some negitive at med/high resolution...yep, another wedding gone sad...

What are some lab names around Garrett/Fort Wayne, she can take them too?

Thanks....

For anyone interested, I found this information on SEO so far:

1. Dynamic, that is to say regularly-changing, content is king. The search engine bots will compare your site now to how it was the last time it was crawled. The more regularly it changes in some way or another, the better it looks. A site that never changes is assumed to be abandoned and will slide down the rankings. That is why having your blog as an actual part of your site is a good thing.
2. Search Engines hate flash - it's the law. When Googlebot or whatever crawls your site, it parses the code to get an idea of the content. In an HTML/CSS site, it can not only read all of the code, but also all of the text on the page. Search robots don't speak Flash, so all they know is that something is embedded in the page, but not the actual content. Sure, you *can* optimise a Flash-based site, but never to the extent of a properly formatted HTML/CSS equivilent. An HTML site with embedded Flash components is better than a pure Flash site if you need a compromise.
3. Search Engines love sites that validate. This is something that I've heard, but have nothing factual to base this on. However, it is rumoured that correctly formatted sites do better.
4. Inbound links are good... The more the better. The more sites that link to you, the better it is. Strangely, that carries more weight if you don't then link back to those sites - one way links have more weight than reciprocal linking. The reasoning behind this is that a one-way link looks like people respect your site for the information it holds regardless. Two-way links look like people linking for mutual benefit. Links from directory sites carry less weight still and most search engines know who they are...
5. Keyword meta tags carry less power than they used to, but are still useful. The trick is to optimise your tags, and you should have no more than 10 or 12 keywords. These should then be repeated in your title tags, your meta content tags, and the actual text in your webpage itself. For lack of a better example, look at my landscape photography homepage. See how I repeat "Landscape Photographs for sale". Rumour once had it that text in "header" tags, that is, H1, H2, etc, had more weight to them than regular text, but I don't know how true that is. Get your key words and phrases in there as many times as you can.
6. Following on from point 4, if you're going to have a site that validates, make sure that it's also accessible. I know it seems daft, but it seems to work. For all of the images you have on your site, make sure that you also give them "alt" and "title" tags that accurately (if simply) describe them. My manager at work is blind, but can browse my site using a text-only web browser and a braille display (he's also bought some of my pictures in the past, but that's by-the-by!). At least he has some description of what the blank spaces are in the page.
7. Do a site map. It's not only a good idea, the search engines love it. If you have a Flash site, or a Flash site with an HTML site backup, have your HTML site have a sitemap and link to it from your splash/intro page.
8. Don't spam the search engines... By spam, I mean have a section of your website with keywords repeated over and over, like: newcastle wedding photographer, wedding photographer newcastle, newcastle-based wedding photographer, etc, etc. Doubtless you'll get away with it for a while, but if you get caught you'll be blacklisted and your site won't be indexed. Hiding the text in the same colour as your background won't work (see point #2). Think about it... You hate spam in your mail - search engines are the same (if not more precious) with their rankings. Nobody is too big for this to happen. It does happen, and you'll probably see it (if you haven't already) with your competitors. Risk it if you want, but my advice is not to.
9. For some reasons, search engines seem to love Wikipedia, despite it's inaccuracies. If you can somehow manage to get a link to your site from Wikipedia, then you'll be in there like swimwear.
10. Learn what the robots.txt file is and how to use it to your own advantage.
11. Submit yourself. Most search engines have the means to submit your site (or site map, see point #7) manually. Do it.
12. Lastly (unless I think of anything else later), patience is a virtue. Some optimisation places may tell you that they can improve results in as few as 3 months... That may be, but in the civilian, DIY world of the internet, don't expect to see any substantial upturnin traffic in anything less than 6 months, and possibly as many as 9.
13. Oh, and if nothing else, keep referring to point #1!

Hi everyone. Just wanted to make a post so it will subscribe me to the thread and I can get to it in USerCP instead of searching for it.

How is everyone today?

Karena wrote in post #3948441
Hi everyone. Just wanted to make a post so it will subscribe me to the thread and I can get to it in USerCP instead of searching for it.

How is everyone today?

Good Karena, how are you doing?

Feeling a little bit under the weather. I have a sore throat today. I was up until 4 Am and didn't get a lot of sleep which might be a contributing factor. I have no idea! And I have a photoshoot this evening and it's a bit chilly today compared to the past week.

Bryan,

What an informative thread..thanks so much

You know I'm In!

I agree Bryan, very informative! I am in the process of revamping my website that I have had for like a year but never really used. It's a shame

Rakefet wrote in post #3948549
Bryan,

What an informative thread..thanks so much

You know I'm In!

Well get over to the link exchange and post your info silly!