Need advice on search engine boosting

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 19:10:02 +0100, David Off
<david.off_dumpthisbit_ (AT) voila (DOT) fr> wrote:

Big Bill wrote:

You can learn the basics of SEO in a day,


No you can't.

waddaya mean? Stoma did!

I rest my case.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk SEO (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
home of SEO that's shiny!
--

Peter Royle wrote:

Hi,

I'm a bit new to this area, so I think I need some advice. I keep
getting bombarded with emails offering to boost our search engine
rankings, guaranteed top 10 placements, etc.

Are these companies kosher?

No, they are scamsters.

Do they deliver?

Not that i can see.

Has anyone experience of
paying money to these people and seeing high class results?

I got a telephone call from one of these jokers today. The guy was
reading from a script in a very deadpan voice, something like:

"Hello, i am calling today from Master Hosting. We noticed your web
site today and we wondered if you created it yourself or outsourced it
because it appeared that it was well designed and informative but it
ranked very low at the major search engines."

At this point i burst out giggling because is kind of a joke around
our shop how high our site ranks for our chosen keywords. So i asked
the guy, "Which search engines were you testing us on -- and which
keywords?"

He said, "Alta Vista shows that you could rank higher if you made
better use of meta tags."

I almost it laughing, but asked him to explain. Turns out that he was
flogging a $29.95 "trial service" that would "ensure your site is
listed at 200 top search engines with higher rankings that will send
qualified buyers to your site."

I asked him what a "qualified" buyer was in contradistinction to a
regular old buyer. He just repeated the line of script, like a broken
record.

I asked him if he knew how well i ranked for my top keywords. No
answer. I asked again.

"Well, that is up to our research department," he finally mumbled.

"Do you know what a keyword is?"

"Our research department handles that."

"Well," i said, "Tell your research department to write you a better
script for cold calling."

It was pathetic.

cat yronwode

Karezza and Sacred Sex ----- http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html

You can learn the basics of SEO in a day,

No you can't.

I did say the basics!!

http://www.kamperhire.co.uk
Yes, this is me! Only design and build though
Client is doing great business on PPC campaigns.

http://www.youclaim.co.uk
This is me too, with some SEO thrown in!

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:51:30 +0000 (UTC), "small mouse"
<swampdeerSP (AT) AMgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

You can learn the basics of SEO in a day,

No you can't.


I did say the basics!!

http://www.kamperhire.co.uk
Yes, this is me! Only design and build though
Client is doing great business on PPC campaigns.

http://www.youclaim.co.uk
This is me too, with some SEO thrown in!

What have you SEO'd?

I can see one thing that could be described as optimisation and that's
the footer links, but as discussed here and on many forums it's
believed links in this area/like this are receiving less weight.

There is a fundamental SEO error you (or the designer) made (A VERY
BIG ONE) which requires a secondary navigation menu for the search
engine spiders. The top menu system is invisible to search engines, so
without an alternative means to find pages Google etc... will probably
miss some.

How many pages are there on this site? More than 336?

No headers, H*.

Badly named files (underscores) that are not search engine friendly
and not user friendly with mixed case. If someone wants to link to
this page http://www.youclaim.co.uk/Repetitive...n%20Injury.htm
do they use spaces or %20 and do you know what can happen if they use
the wrong case? For example link to
http://www.youclaim.co.uk/repetitive...n%20injury.htm

In general page titles are unique (this is good), but not as keyword
focused as you should be aiming for. Also the calculator pages ie
www.youclaim.co.uk/YC_Injury_ Find.asp?cboBodyPart=Psychiatric all
have the same title (Accident compensation, injury calculator) which
is not good.

Based on this site you don't know the basics yet.

Positives
-------------
Anchor text usage (quite good for some stuff).
Mostly unique titles (needs work)

Negatives (things to research/learn)
-------------------------------------------------
Filenames
Headers
Javascript menu (not indexed)
Link structure (getting every page spidered {not just via a sitemap})

I'd consider all the above basic SEO, it's unlikely you could learn it
all in a day (or a week). You missed headers which is a big one.

Took me about 3 months to be reasonably sure I had the basics because
there is so much misinformation about SEO around. I'll add at three
months in I still believed stuff that I now know to be rubbish. It was
over a year before I felt confident enough in my understanding to
charge people for SEO consulting.

David
--
http://www.search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk/

small mouse wrote:

You can learn the basics of SEO in a day,

No you can't.



I did say the basics!!

http://www.kamperhire.co.uk
Yes, this is me! Only design and build though
Client is doing great business on PPC campaigns.

http://www.youclaim.co.uk
This is me too, with some SEO thrown in!

I just noticed something that you may want to change - not SEO "an
accident a work" should be an accident *at* work - I expect.

Here's the paragraph.

We can help you make a compensation claim for:

a car accident
*an accident a work*
a whiplash injury
a slip, trip or fall
an accident in a public place
and any other type of injury

Best,

Jez.

--
Rustic Stone House Signs
www.rusticstone.net

I just noticed something that you may want to change - not SEO "an
accident a work" should be an accident *at* work - I expect.


Best,

Jez.

--
Rustic Stone House Signs
www.rusticstone.net

Thanks Jez!!

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:43:00 +0000 (UTC), "small mouse"
<swampdeer (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I just noticed something that you may want to change - not SEO "an
accident a work" should be an accident *at* work - I expect.


Best,

Jez.

--
Rustic Stone House Signs
www.rusticstone.net


Thanks Jez!!

You should thank Dave too as he pointed a lot out.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk SEO (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
home of SEO that's shiny!
--

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:51:30 +0000 (UTC), "small mouse"
<swampdeer (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

You can learn the basics of SEO in a day,

No you can't.


I did say the basics!!

After spending a few days looking up those "basics" then sifting out
the "out-dated" or "skeptical" bits from what you have read elsewhere.
Then setting aside time to start applying the little bits you did find
out about to your site's pages.

I dont' disagree a person can easily learn the basics of SEO - such as
valid HTML, proper usage of HTML [headings and such in the content],
reading about pros/cons of javascript menus, keyword density, META
keywords and description, <title></title>, and et al.

But I don't think one can "lean it in a day" - no more so than I can
believe book titles that share thoughts like "Learn HTML in 24 hours
or less".

Carol

"SEO Dave" <seodave (AT) search-engine-optimization-services (DOT) co.uk> wrote in
message news:96hmp01edir4osj0duki3ejl59849p8ll6 (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:51:30 +0000 (UTC), "small mouse"

Badly named files (underscores) that are not search engine friendly
and not user friendly with mixed case.


David
--

Please tell. What is wrong with underscores. This is news to me. Have you
any references.


Len

"Len Jones" <ljones (AT) MNSi (DOT) net> wrote

<snip>

Please tell. What is wrong with underscores. This is news to me. Have you
any references.

Google see - as "space" so keyword1-keyword2 is seen as "keyword1"
and "keyword2", two words. And keyword1_keyword2 is seen as one keyword
that's "keyword1_keyword2".