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Website Not Showing in Google?

25 September 2010
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If you have a new website and it's not showing in Google then there are a few possible reasons why. See if any of the following apply to you:

  1. The website is a few weeks old - sorry but it can take up to two months if you submit your site through the traditional way
  2. The website is a copy of an existing website - Google is very unlikely to EVER index your website if you are using duplicate content
  3. Its a new website without any backlinks yet - Get some backlinks and your site will be indexed much quicker
  4. I used an automated website design program from my hosting company - Oh dear! Make sure there are no errors in the page. If Google's spider can't crawl your site then you won't get listed.
  5. I have some very nice flash buttons/links on my site - Google might have problems following the links. You might find that only a few of your pages are in the Google index.

If you want to check if your website is in the Google index then type the following into the search box: site:www.yourdomainname.co.uk. All your indexed pages will be shown. If there are none then check the above list and get it fixed.

It is worth mentioning that being in the index is much different to getting your web pages higher in the search engine results pages. This is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which is covered in other posts.

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Search results
21 September 2010
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How not to get to number one in Google

Have you had anyone promise you that they can get your website to number one in the search engines?

I took a phone call today from a telesales girl offering just that. The conversation went something like this....

Telesales: We have a slot available on the front page of Google for "computers and Internet" would you like that slot?

Me: What are you offering, front page of Google for my company - guaranteed?

Telesales: Yes, we can put your company in the number one spot in the next 48 hours

Me: Well I have been designing websites for 10 years and I can't  guarantee that, so I don't know how you can!

Telesales: We can, we do it everyday.

Me: Well I would like to know how you do that because I don't know of any company on the planet that can guarantee that. And how much does this miraculous service cost?

Telesales: £95 per month

Me: Hang on.... are you talking about Adsense?

Telesales: No, I don't know what that is. We just put your details in the number one slot in the champaigne coloured area.

Me: Ahh, you mean along the top and down the right hand side of the page, don't you?

Telesales: Yes

Me: That's adsense. Anyone can do that. You are paying Google to put an advert in the sponsored listings. I don't need you to do that as anyone can get that. But, your sales spiel is very misleading almost to the point of lying!

Telesales: I don't know, I'm just doing my job. Goodbye.

Why you should run away

If anyone ever 'guarantees' you the number one spot in Google, then run. You are wasting your money! All that any serious web design/search engine optimiser can do is use their skill, experience, knowledge and judgement to perform onsite and offsite optimisation in the belief that your pages will climb the rankings. But nothing is guaranteed, for several reasons including:

  1. Googles algorithm for calculating which web pages are at or near the top is a very closely guarded secret
  2. The algorithm changes frequently - several times a year
  3. Every other, or certainly most, web site owners are competing with your techniques. Some will have more resources than you and some will have less.
  4. There are a reported minimum of 200 ranking factors that determine which web pages get to the top. Some are more important than others.

If you are a business owner wanting good search engine results then you should use the following guidelines:

  1. Work out  a handful of keyphrases that best describe your product or service then do a search and make a note of how many webpages are competing forthat phrase. If you have similar results as the screenshot (223,000,000) then the likleyhood of getting to number one in Google for that phrase is extremely slim.
  2. Move onto your second and subsequent keyphrase and repeat the search until you find one with much less competition
  3. Once you have isolated one or two decent keyphrases then you need to optimise your web page(s) for those terms. If you are hiring someone to do this for you they should/will check that your chosen keyphrases are indeed being searched for. It might sound obvious but some website owners optimise their pages for phrases that no one is searching for.
  4. Get external links, preferably from relevant, quality sites using the keyphrases as the anchor text. When you have got the links get some more.. much more :->

Do that and your site will climb up the Google rankings. You won't be paying for an advert that disappears once you stop paying and that has very limited results. Instead you will have a site that will continue to climb and get you increased web traffic and therefore more business.

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Search Engine Optimization graphic
19 September 2010
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What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

This article is aimed at those of you who have had a new website design and may be wondering why you are not getting tons of enquiries for your products or services from Google or any other search engine. Anyone that has been around web design for a while will have heard people saying they have a neighbours, uncles, best friends, nephew who will build them a website. They may also go on to say that he is doing a college course on web stuff so must be good!

That may be true, however what many people don't realise is that their are billions of websites out there, many competing for the same product, service, or great discovery. This is not meant to be a cynical overview of building websites. Far from it, in fact having a website is now an essential business requirement if you are serious about your offerrings.

Having a website built for you is only one part of the web development process. If potential customers can't find or don't know of your website then you will become very frustrated with your shiny new website.

If you build it they will come - no they won't!

Q. So how do we get people to your website?

A. Search Engine Optimization or SEO* for short. SEO is a group of methods and techniques we use to get your website higher in the search engine rankings for your chosen key phrases. Obviously the higher your web pages are in search engines the more traffic you will get to your site and traffic, or more accurately quality traffic, will get you more business.

On Page SEO and Off Page SEO

There are two basic strands to SEO, on page factors are concerned with how we design your web pages to climb up the search engine rankings. Off page deals with all the methods available outside of your website, such as press releases, article syndication, social media and much more.

On Page SEO

Optimizing your webpages accounts for approximatly 20 - 30% of the search engine rankings for your pages. The following list highlights most of the things you should check your website for. If you are missing any then get them fixed and you could well be seeing a boost in your rankings.

URL - try and have your keywords in your url, e.g. www.myproduct.co.uk or www.acme.co.uk/myproduct

Page Title - each page of your website should have the keyword or keyphrase in the title. The title of your page is the text at the very top left of your browser window. If all you can see is 'Home' - get it changed.

Links - Make sure all your important pages are linked to and add links to your body text as Google values these more highly. There are reports/rumours that Google is now giving more value to outward links to authority sites.

Link text - Have your keyphrases as the link text, e.g. Website Maintenance Services in Derby links to my Website Maintenance page

This is just a brief intro to seo and I will be covering more in a later article.

 

 

* For the purpose of this article I will group Search Engine Marketing (SEM) under the same heading as SEO
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02 September 2010
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How to remove the wrong browser warning

Some of the more popular Joomla! templates carry a piece of code that displays a warning if your website visitor is still using Internet Explorer version 6. You might think that's a good idea especially as ie6 causes a whole host of problems for website designers. The problem is that this code can be a little flaky. I have seen the error message show up when using IE7 and IE8 and Firefox browsers.

To remove the old browser warning

Go to: YourTemplateName/layouts/blocks/ie6/ie6warning.php and look for the following code:

define ('SHOW_IE6_WARNING', 'close');

	/*

	Setting for this message. Clear cookie if you change this setting.

	'none': Not show warning

	'once': Show one time only

	'close': Show until user check box "Not show again" and close the message

	'always': Always show this message

	*/

Simply change the word: 'close' in the first line to 'none', save the file and you are done.

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