Google, page one

[paulr]

i'm considering adding more text to my site just to make it more searchable. i have a redesign in the works with even less text than i have now, which might be a mistake.

if i do a search with the kinds of search phrases i think someone would be using to find work like mine, i end up burried dozens of pages down.

the funny thing is, when i look at my site statistics to see what google searches actually landed people at my site, it's usually bizarre ones. most of them look like mistakes. the most pompous couple of words used in a review on my site keep showing up in the search list. so does "robert adams." i'm sure no one looking for robert adams has been happy to settle on my work.

[Michael Gordon]

So, if you could have your web page show up on the first page of Google, as opposed to where you are now, how much do you think that would change your yearly income?

Based on what search terms? At the moment I'm showing up as #1 for "california landscape photography", but I can assure you that it has done only little for my income. Maybe my website isn't easy enough to buy from. Maybe an update and overhaul is sadly overdue. Just showing up on page 1 isn't good enough. All the pieces have to be in place.

[Frank Petronio]

I actually wrote a couple of posts about my current web design philosophy on my cleanpage.com website, you may like checking it out.

Ha, but I don't work cheap when I actually work ;-)

[Marko]

Maybe my website isn't easy enough to buy from. Maybe an update and overhaul is sadly overdue. Just showing up on page 1 isn't good enough. All the pieces have to be in place.

Michael, please don't get me wrong, but you are absolutely right. I just looked at your site - it is a nice, understated gallery, but it is a bit dated. And, more importantly, it does not make it clear that you are actually selling something.

The first time I looked, I saw a beautiful gallery and came back here to comment on how nice the pictures were, especially the front page one, but then I saw your comment about the site not generating enough sales. After going back to your site, I had to look carefully to notice the "Purchase" item, as well as "Services" and other menu choices. The entire menu is sort of blending into the background.

Honest opinion - you need to have your site redesigned in order to do justice to your images. And to improve your chances at making a sale there, of course.

[Marko]

Ha, but I don't work cheap when I actually work ;-)

Nobody will ever value your work more than you do.

Cheap means charging less than the market would bear.

Expensive means charging more than most clients would pay.

Whatever your rate may be.

[JW Dewdney]

I found this quite useful... I just read the book and changed all my meta tags as a result.

http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/publicizing

[Marko]

I found this quite useful... I just read the book and changed all my meta tags as a result.

http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/publicizing

That was a great article at the time it was written. But now it is three years old, and search engines have moved into other directions, like social interraction models and such.

Search engines constantly evolve and change and time is really very, very compressed on the web. A year could be, and usually is a very long time.

Another thing is, they all tend to keep their criteria very secret and anything you can see described is already way obsolete.

That's why there exist entire sites devoted to watching the fenomenon.

[Frank Petronio]

Quality of your content is the single most important factor - of course it has to be "searchable" by being in a modern XHTML/CSS type website. Not under a Flash splash page...

[JW Dewdney]

That was a great article at the time it was written. But now it is three years old, and search engines have moved into other directions, like social interraction models and such.

Well - my point was that parts of it are still quite relevant. I don't mean all of it. I was specifically hoping people would understand I was referring to the section on the way the good search engines filter out common results in favor of the words that 'stick out' (the histogram section). I think this is very relevant to setting up proper content and title meta tags. But maybe I'm wrong. Hell. I can't even get myself to show up in the first 20 pages of google - so what do I know?

Anybody know how much the whole Google 'ad words' thing costs?

[Marko]

Well - my point was that parts of it are still quite relevant. I don't mean all of it. I was specifically hoping people would understand I was referring to the section on the way the good search engines filter out common results in favor of the words that 'stick out' (the histogram section). I think this is very relevant to setting up proper content and title meta tags. But maybe I'm wrong. Hell. I can't even get myself to show up in the first 20 pages of google - so what do I know?

Anybody know how much the whole Google 'ad words' thing costs?

And that was my point - metatags themselves are irrelevant. Useful content properly structured and laid out is what matters, because people will link to it and search engine will be able to find it and read it.

The best "ad package" won't be worth a damn if it does not lead to good content.