To splashpage or not to splashpage?

Hi, guys

I publish a monthly science fiction web magazine called The Thunder
Child.

http://thethunderchild.com

The URL leads to a splash page, basically the "cover" of the zine, upon
which a person has to click to get into the site. I've got lots of
keywords in the metatag, and I've got a link to the sitemap on the same
page.

Clicking on the cover brings people to the Table of Contents, that
changes every month...but there's a nav bar with links to archive pages
for each article.

I am in search engines - but I rarely find myself on the first or even
second page of search hits.

And I've just been reading WebProNews that suggests that people not use
"Flash Page Portals" leading into the rest of the site.

So my question is this - should I get rid of my 'cover' and just have
the first page people see be the table of contents page?

Thanks for any help.

omnivore_ink (AT) yahoo (DOT) com schreef:

Hi, guys

I publish a monthly science fiction web magazine called The Thunder
Child.

http://thethunderchild.com

The URL leads to a splash page, basically the "cover" of the zine, upon
which a person has to click to get into the site. I've got lots of
keywords in the metatag, and I've got a link to the sitemap on the same
page.

Clicking on the cover brings people to the Table of Contents, that
changes every month...but there's a nav bar with links to archive pages
for each article.

I am in search engines - but I rarely find myself on the first or even
second page of search hits.

And I've just been reading WebProNews that suggests that people not use
"Flash Page Portals" leading into the rest of the site.

So my question is this - should I get rid of my 'cover' and just have
the first page people see be the table of contents page?

Short answer:

Don't use splash- intro screens.

Long answer:

Don't use splash- intro screens. You have no control as in where or how
your visitors will land on your page, so why use an intro-screen on your
most important page?

On your index page you should explain what your site is about, not
inviting your customers in, as they already are.



--
Website Design: http://vision2form.nl/websitedesign/
Being found: http://vision2form.nl/websitedesign/being-found.html
Css templates: http://vision2form.nl/websitedesign/css-templates.html

On 29 Sep 2006 14:24:48 -0700, omnivore_ink (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote:

Hi, guys

I publish a monthly science fiction web magazine called The Thunder
Child.

http://thethunderchild.com

The URL leads to a splash page, basically the "cover" of the zine, upon
which a person has to click to get into the site. I've got lots of
keywords in the metatag, and I've got a link to the sitemap on the same
page.

Clicking on the cover brings people to the Table of Contents, that
changes every month...but there's a nav bar with links to archive pages
for each article.

I am in search engines - but I rarely find myself on the first or even
second page of search hits.

And I've just been reading WebProNews that suggests that people not use
"Flash Page Portals" leading into the rest of the site.

So my question is this - should I get rid of my 'cover' and just have
the first page people see be the table of contents page?

Yup. The web is not a magazine. There is no cover page.

BB



--

http://www.crystal-liaison.com/angel...-guardian.html
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/anri/black-king.html
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/art-i...ax-appeal.html

omnivore_ink (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote:

So my question is this - should I get rid of my 'cover' and just have
the first page people see be the table of contents page?

Splash pages aren't a good idea.

Your table of contents page has a higher PageRank than your front page.
There are more people linking to your table of contents than to your splash
page. In addition to the SEO considerations of splash pages, that might
give a hint about what your visitors think is important.

If you do get rid of your splash page, be sure that you don't just remove
the tableofcontents.html page and leave a 404 Not Found error in its place.
I didn't look at the site closely, but you might want to do something like
put the tableofcontents.html page at / (root) and do a 301 redirect from
tableofcontents.html to / (the root of the domain).

That might not be the best way to do it -- it's just a thought from a quick
glance at the site. Even better would be to leave the tableofcontents.html
page where it is and make a new front page with lots of text content and
links into different parts of the Web site.

Thanks very much for the advice, guys. Appreciate it.

I'll start work on a redesign right away!

z wrote:

Even better would be to leave the tableofcontents.html
page where it is and make a new front page with lots of text content and
links into different parts of the Web site.

Now we have a TEXT flashpage, a Doorway page, or a Gateway page. Let
us say with a maximum size of 10K, optimized for just one or two
keywords.

Are they a good idea?

<johngohde (AT) naturalhealthperspective (DOT) com> wrote ...

Now we have a TEXT flashpage, a Doorway page, or a Gateway page. Let
us say with a maximum size of 10K, optimized for just one or two
keywords. Are they a good idea?

Anything that confuses, frustrates or wastes visitors time is never a good
idea. People do not want to get sent around in circles, touring your
google-gaming pages; they want the content the serps suggested they'd find.

Keep navigation logical, transparent and honest; put your energy into
building more content for your future visitors.
--

Andrew
Editor
http://www.seo2seo.com/

johngohde (AT) naturalhealthperspective (DOT) com wrote:

z wrote:

Even better would be to leave the tableofcontents.html
page where it is and make a new front page with lots of text content and
links into different parts of the Web site.

Now we have a TEXT flashpage, a Doorway page, or a Gateway page. Let
us say with a maximum size of 10K, optimized for just one or two
keywords.

Are they a good idea?

Why not make a real home page with lots of information on it? Maybe even a
few article excerpts with a "read more" link. Then have a small block or
link that says something like "check out our table of contents" (or
something) that still leaves a link to your tableofcontents.html page.
De-emphasize the tableofcontents.html page, but still link to it from the
home page.

Make the home page your new main page, but don't make it the same as the
table of contents page.

One idea: you could turn tableofcontents.html into a simpler sitemap-type of
page with a list of popular articles & products, or something like that,
and move the current content of that page to the real home page. Keep 3 or
4 links from the tableofcontents.html page to the home page among the other
links, and at least 1 link from the home page to the tableofcontents page.

Just a quick idea.

z wrote:

johngohde (AT) naturalhealthperspective (DOT) com wrote:


z wrote:

Even better would be to leave the tableofcontents.html
page where it is and make a new front page with lots of text content and
links into different parts of the Web site.

Now we have a TEXT flashpage, a Doorway page, or a Gateway page. Let
us say with a maximum size of 10K, optimized for just one or two
keywords.

Are they a good idea?

Why not make a real home page with lots of information on it? Maybe even a
few article excerpts with a "read more" link. Then have a small block or
link that says something like "check out our table of contents" (or
something) that still leaves a link to your tableofcontents.html page.
De-emphasize the tableofcontents.html page, but still link to it from the
home page.

Make the home page your new main page, but don't make it the same as the
table of contents page.

One idea: you could turn tableofcontents.html into a simpler sitemap-type of
page with a list of popular articles & products, or something like that,
and move the current content of that page to the real home page. Keep 3 or
4 links from the tableofcontents.html page to the home page among the other
links, and at least 1 link from the home page to the tableofcontents page.

Just a quick idea.

I don't know much about SEO optimizations, but here are a few tips that
helped me:-
http://sandy007smarty.seo.iitm.ac.in...p-10-seo-tips/

On 30 Sep 2006 10:45:37 -0700, "Turbo" <sandeep.iiit (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I don't know much about SEO optimizations, but here are a few tips that
helped me:-
http://sandy007smarty.seo.iitm.ac.in...p-10-seo-tips/

Few points-

The title tag as described at number 1 is actually called the title
element. Title tag is closer to the title attribute title="blah" which
currently is ignored by Google.

"The most important keywords can be bolded or colored in red."

Bold <b>, <strong> and even <em> may be considered more important by a
search engine (not been shown conclusively either way), I think most
SEO's tend towards some of these elements (especially <b>/<strong>)
help.

I've never heard of an SEO believing change the font colour helps with
SEO though. Since webpages can be white on black, black of white text
etc... I very much doubt search engine care about font colours used.

Number 8, the phrase you are looking for is anchor text
http://www.seo-gold.com/tutorial/anc...imization.html

Number 10 is a waste of time, though submitting once won't hurt
either. Gain links that's what gets a site indexed.

Can you not change the WordPress theme on that blog? I'll be making an
SEO version of that theme soon at
http://www.morearnings.com/2006/09/1...oogle-adsense/
done the AdSense version so far, next is SEO like at-

http://www.morearnings.com/2006/08/1...oogle-adsense/
http://www.morearnings.com/2006/08/3...oogle-adsense/

David
--
WordPress Themes with AdSense ads
http://www.morearnings.com/category/wordpress-themes/
AdSense Tips http://www.morearnings.com/2006/05/08/adsense-revenue/