Search Engine Optimization

[Kalrog]

AKA - Get people to vote for Nathan Deckinga for Leander ISD school board place 6.

Help! How do I get this site seen by everyone searching for appropriate terms? And is it different for different search engines? I have found some stuff for Google, but I would like to make sure that it works everywhere and still improve the Google rankings.

[Charles L. Cotton]

I should leave this to the experts, but I've heard that search engines now search entire websites, not just meta tags. In fact, I've also heard that Google and Yahoo specifically don't search meta tags.

Hopefully, someone will jump in and either confirm this, or tell me to keep quiet and stick to what I know.

Chas.

[Xander]

I should leave this to the experts, but I've heard that search engines now search entire websites, not just meta tags. In fact, I've also heard that Google and Yahoo specifically don't search meta tags.

Hopefully, someone will jump in and either confirm this, or tell me to keep quiet and stick to what I know.

Chas.

You've heard correctly.

[The Annoyed Man]

I should leave this to the experts, but I've heard that search engines now search entire websites, not just meta tags. In fact, I've also heard that Google and Yahoo specifically don't search meta tags.

Hopefully, someone will jump in and either confirm this, or tell me to keep quiet and stick to what I know.

Chas.

Actually, they still do pickup meta tags, although they also have other parameters in their algorithm. Meta tags aren't the only solution, but they are definitely a useful tool in any complete optimization package.

[Kalrog]

Google specifically said that they like a good description but that others are pretty much ignored.
Yahoo likes a few more according to their site.
I have both - and I have submitted the sitemap.xml file to both.
I also specifically requested a spider of the site by Yahoo - Google had already done it (partnership with GoDaddy - my hosting provider).

I figure I need to hit MSN as well... just haven't done that yet.
I also figure that I need hits and other links to it - uh... can I get an Amen! from the choir?

What else do I need to do?

[Xander]

What else do I need to do?

Check out what your site actually looks like when Google views it using their webmaster tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools ... about.html

The biggest boost you can get to your rankings is to get other people (with legitimate sites) to link back to your site from their content. Get them to write blog posts about you with links back to your site, in other words.

[Kalrog]

I have done some of that, and I have also done the MSN submission now as well so I am about done with what I can do on my own.

Get them to write blog posts about you with links back to your site

Any volunteers?