Need help and suggestions

They have: 3 posts

Joined: May 2004

Hi i run the marketing for drive thru records. Where a major label and deal with rock music. We are in the middle of talking about having a new site built. our last site was all flash and didnt list at all with the search engines. I really want our next site to list well, to be built in such a away that we wont be looked over by the crawlers. Any one know any good companies that could build a site like this?

Our current site is drivethrurecords.com

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

If you're looking to hire a contractor, please post in the Market Place forum.

That is a really neat site but as you said, the search engines will have problems indexing something like that. The best thing to do would be to build your site in xHTML with CSS for styling. Pay special attention to headings, titles, and other page text. Hopefully some of the SEO people will pop in and add some more detailed info.

They have: 5,633 posts

Joined: Jan 1970

drivethruboy,

I am not a webmaster. I am a college student at Saint Leo University majoring in Computer Information Systems. I am responding to your request as part of my homework assignment. The first thing I noticed is your site took a long time to load. In fact, I never got passed the "splash screen".

According to my textbook, splash screens are not a good thing. They irritate the customer by making him "jump through a hoop" before he ever sees what you have to offer. They are nice art, but do not help business. Most search engines will only go down three layers into your site. If the first layer is a splash screen, you are already behind the power curve.

My text book recommends the following to optimize your site for search engines:
Create keywords your target audience is most likely to use when searching for your site. Ask people what words they would use in a search engine to find a site like yours and use them in your site's text.

Use specific phrases, not general keywords. General keywords such as "vacation", "stereo", and "computer" occur so frequently that they will not contribute toward a high ranking in a search engine. As an example, instead of the three words I used, use "African safari", "micro-stereo", and Pentium laptop computer". See, they are more descriptive and will get you more customers who are looking for what you have to offer.

Optimize the title: The webpage's title is the single most important place to improve keyword search engine optimization. Not only do search engine algorithmns place a higher value on keywords in a title, but the title also is the dominant item in most search results. Even if a page does not get the number one ranking in a Google search, being high in the rankings with an alluring title will guarantee visitors.

Use Metatags. A description of the site meta tag is included by some search engines in the results of a search, so be sure the site's key words are used in the description. A keyword meta tag tells spiders what keywords the site owner thinks best describes the site's content. Keyword meta tags are great places to put common mispellings or alternative spellings of a keyword.

Use keywords early and often in page content - self explanatory.

Include keywords in "alt" tags. An "alt" tag should describe an image, but with keywords if possible. So, for example, instead of "tiger.gif", use "a tiger on a Vacationtime African Safari" in an "alt" tag.

Avoid spider hostile features. Search engine spiders and algorithms have a hard time with frames, dynamic URLs, and Flash, image maps, and JavaScript.
Use these features only if a compelling reason exists. "I'm proud of what I can do with Flash and JavaScript" is not a compelling reason.

Do not ever, ever, ever, spam a search engine. Search engine designers know most of the tactics used to spam search engines, so be honest and do not try to trick them. Spamming strategies such as duplicate pages, excessive repitition of a keyword in a meta tag, tiny text, and same-color text as the background color can be detected by a search engine, and the site will be blacklisted from inclusion in the search engine.

I realize I gave you a pretty thorough answer, and its a lot to read. I hope it helps you with your site. It will certainly help me with my grade on this assignment.

Very respectfully,

Jerry Sindle

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