Website Design? Any recommendations?

[michael calvert]

some how i have managed to get to the nr 3 slot on Yahoo when searching for MOTOR SPORT SUPPORT, something to do with how they analyse the text on your home page, all i did was submit site and enter the key word searches as nned on the relevant sections, I used publisher to build our site though othing fancy like DW, could get hold of a copy!

[Paul64]

I have noticed that when a post is added to LR4x4 it is instanly recognised by Google on a search. How is that possible? I have been submitting my site to every search engine know to man, and I'm still only recognised by 3.

Something else I noted, when my site is picked up by google, it is headed by "Home2 rather than the site name or description. What am I doing wrong?

Does LR4x4 pay for web search/link promotion?

Cheers in advance.

Paul.

[GBMUD]

If you look in the list of who is online at the bottom of the list of posts you will see that Google.com spends even more time here then Les Henson!

Chris

[Paul64]

If you look in the list of who is online at the bottom of the list of posts you will see that Google.com spends even more time here then Les Henson!

Chris

I noticed that. What is that all about?

[GBMUD]

It is Google's "robot" reading the site and cataloging it so that when you google for "chris snapped another damned cam belt" Google knows where to point you.

Chris

[Paul64]

It is Google's "robot" reading the site and cataloging it so that when you google for "chris snapped another damned cam belt" Google knows where to point you.

Chris

Ok, so how do you get a google robot to reside on a site?

[Orgasmic Farmer]

as far as I am aware so long as your site is not linked to from an existing site, i.e. it sits all alone in the ether, then the web-bots can't see it. What you have to do is get as many links to your site from as many other sites (the more well known the better) as possible. Its the web bit you need to be part of. Until you are part of it you do not exist in cyberspace. If you have anymates out there with working websites ask them to link to your site. Even if the site has nothing to do with your site get them to build in invisible links (a link to ta full stop or some text in the background colour for example). A web-bot will find it even if you can't. Also make sure you get lots of key-words on your pages, again even go as far as putting words invisibly into the background. Make links all around your site so if any bot finds it it will quickly be able to travel round and round the site. The more pages it visits the higher up the search engine you will go.

HTHs

[alan kemp]

Alan, I find the easy way to get a good layout template when you're learning is save a page from a website you like the look of, then open it in whatever design program you're using and make your own changes etc. as required. Stick with Dreamweaver, or at least stick away from Frontpage. I use GoLive which isn't as trendy as DW but does what I need and the price was right

You should be able to transfer the templates from Frontpage to DW simply by saving a blank page in any given template style, then opening it in DW and adding your content.

Out of interest, pay-per-click may get you traffic but does it get you sales? And how much does a click cost these days?

I seem to remember all the codes going with Frontpage templates over to DW and causing all sorts of problems. Pay per click works for me as my business is reasonably niche market and I get about 10% of my turnover from them for a tiny fraction of that in cost, however, I am cynical about it as cost goes up per click and the big companies are putting £1.00 per click on, mine is a lot less than that and is capped each month, it will do me for now..

[FridgeFreezer]

Ok, so how do you get a google robot to reside on a site?

I don't think you do, I think Google makes up its own mind. This site is full of ever-changing content (thousands of pages) so Google will probably note that and keep re-indexing the forum.

If you think about it you need to put the URL of your website in your signature as mentioned several times above - Google spends all day on this site, if it trips over a link to your site in every one of your posts then maybe, just maybe, your ranking might go up.

Or you could stop obsessing about Google rank and concentrate on filling your site with content, you may just find Google's bot will do its job and decide a site full of content ranks more highly than one full of keywords designed to fool it

[geoffbeaumont]

Ok, so how do you get a google robot to reside on a site?

First you've got to get Google to actually notice your existence - in theory you've already done that, but there's no guarantees on when they'll actually pay your site a visit. It's well worth getting other sites to link to yours, especially ones you already know are ranked highly on Google, as the links from those are considered of higher value by the routines the search engines use.

It helps if you understand roughly how a search engine 'spider' or 'crawler' works - it starts from a page on a website and follows every link on that page, examining the contents of each page it reads and recording it in the search database, then following all the links on that page and so on. It ranks the pages for the keywords that appear on it (a keyword is pretty much any word you care to search for), based on how often and where that word appears, what links there are to the page and so on - a lot of it is about context. The actual routines are complex and closely guarded secrets, but that's the basics.

Unless you've got a lot of spare time on your hands you won't get the spiders visiting very often, because what they do is visit occasionally and if they find the content has changed or been added to a lot then they schedule your site for more frequent visits. A busy forum like LR4x4 has lots of new content every day so gets scheduled for very frequent visits. It isn't in the nature of your site to change that often, so you'll be scheduled for occasional visits, which means updates may take a little time to be picked up.

Does that make some kind of sense?

[T1G UP]

I bought all my urls from www.easily.co.uk they gave me a google adwords voucher for £30.This is the only way i see of getting up on googl etc for a start.

[Paul64]

That all makes a lot of sense, and thanks as always for all your valuable input.

As always it is easy once you know how, but it is often the language that acts as a barrier. When you have it spelt out in Black & White like you have, the mist starts to lift.

Cheers, Paul.

[Paul64]

I bought all my urls from www.easily.co.uk they gave me a google adwords voucher for £30.This is the only way i see of getting up on googl etc for a start.

Thanks for that, but unfortuantely my bargain basement company didn't offer me any such gifts. Just had a look at your site. Do you do roll bars for LR's?

Cheers,

Paul.

[T1G UP]

I'll make some bars for mine when i got 5.

The actual site got knobbled early on and so was removed and is being re jigged.

will be back up asap.

There are lots of great fabricators and indeed firms that can supply what you want/ need at a reasonable cost.

I value my time VERY highly and so i'm too expensive to use,plus i'm not a great fabricator only a pipe monkey with a little company and 15 subbies to herd along on 3 different sites.

exact look good,north look good,love the freelander kit,

[Paul64]

How do i get a robots.txt on my site? I just can't work it out. Can anyone test my site to see if they can find one. It's driving me potty. Started attracting some engines, but not google. Must be this robots thingy ma jib

[FridgeFreezer]

it's just a text file, created with Notepad, that tells robots like google what to look at or not. If it's not there then they will index your entire site.

Out of interest, how many hits are you getting and how many are you expecting?

[geoffbeaumont]

^^^ wot fridge said

If you had a robots.txt it would be in the root of your site: http://www.transylvania4x4tours.com/robots.txt

If you click on the link you'll see that you don't

[Paul64]

^^^ wot fridge said

If you had a robots.txt it would be in the root of your site: http://www.transylvania4x4tours.com/robots.txt

If you click on the link you'll see that you don't

Ok, so how do I get this into the root of my site? Fridge says to use a notepad file. Where do I put it? Does it have to be written in a certain way? Do I simply put the notepad file in my file containing everything else? Is it so important if my whole site is automatically indexed by google?

Fridge, I am getting about 30 hits a day, but would like hundreds.

Cheers,

Paul

[T1G UP]

go on there adwords and it shows you how to do it and the text to include.

[geoffbeaumont]

Ok, so how do I get this into the root of my site? Fridge says to use a notepad file. Where do I put it? Does it have to be written in a certain way? Do I simply put the notepad file in my file containing everything else? Is it so important if my whole site is automatically indexed by google?

Fridge, I am getting about 30 hits a day, but would like hundreds.

If you want your site indexed you don't need a robots.txt file at all - it's used to stop the search engines indexing parts of your site.

[Paul64]

If you want your site indexed you don't need a robots.txt file at all - it's used to stop the search engines indexing parts of your site.

Thanks for that. So I don't need a robot.txt to get noticed by google?

[geoffbeaumont]

Thanks for that. So I don't need a robot.txt to get noticed by google?

Nope

[Paul64]

Nope

Thanks for that. I can stop fretting now!

[brianj]

Hi Paul

My partner lured me out of bed to look at a fascinating thread this morning and suggested I look at it. I am not a website designer but have a background in professional PR, publicity, journalism, design and print, so I am commenting on layout, readability and overall good appearance.

Before I start I should say to Chris (GBMUD) that I think Jenny's work is very good. I too like the simply pearls site, it is very clean and well designed, plus easy to use.

I've got loads of comments but I'll stick to the really obvious ones.

1 I think the banner is too busy. I'm not sure of the added value of the five stars unless you want to call yourself fivestartours, and I think the .com at the end of the name is unnecessary. It is great for Jet2.com which is short and snappy but transylvania4x4tours is long enough.

2 Unless I missed something you don't say what country you are in. Don't assume everyone knows. You say you work with local people but you don't say what they do (what is an operator??) - and do they speak English, Rumanian, Transylvanian or what?

3 I think the font on the inside - with the exception of the three day tour - is far too small. One of the common problems with design and layout is balancing appearance of text and readability. But once you've got people inside, let's assume they are mildly interested. They won't be when it becomes a struggle to read - and I say this as someone who is short-sighted and can read very small print.

4 If you are worried about taking up too much space with your text (hence the small size) you need to change the content, and get rid of some of the padding. I am guessing you and your friend have written it. If you have paid a professional, go back and get a re-write. If you are doing it yourself, avoid passive verbs, superfluous adjectives, and give specific examples instead of generalities.

5 What is your strongest point? For me it is the wildlife. Incidentally are they your pix? If so you are a good photographer - if not, have you or your designer (?) received permission from the photographer to use them? Are they from a photo bank? Back to the wildlife, I would put far more info up, for example latin names etc, links to IUCN red list, and basically more info about the relevant animals. An expert will know these links anyway, someone who is interested but not too knowledgeable may not, but will appreciate this is a serious site. Are you sure the lynx was completely eradicated in Western Europe? And which lynx do you mean? Lynx lynx, yes? ie the Eurasian lynx. Double check all your info with a reputable source or you will not establish credibility. What is the real probablility of seeing any of them?

I guess you are still in the midst of redesigning it at the moment - eg "what to take" on the front, translates to essentials inside. Photos implies photography and not pix of local town. Also tips for taking pix of wildlife looked good but would be more appropriately placed under either wildlife (yes??) or photography as a separate section, ie flora, fauna, buildings, heritage, whatever you have in your local environment. I think that's enough for now.

If you pm Brian I will send you some more areas for attention and a couple of free examples of text as I would rewrite it - not huge long sections or the whole site - like Jenny, it's my job as well! - so I'm also available for internet/fax-based freelance work.

Good luck with the business - Katherine

[FridgeFreezer]

Paul, FFS stop fretting about how many hits you're getting and concentrate on making the site as good as possible!

Hits are a fairly arbitrary thing anyway - one hit means one person looked at one page (or file) once. If they look at a page with 20 photos in it that will be 21 hits. Depending on your hosting company you may be able to get more detailed stats (EG how many actual individual visits you get) but I wouldn't recommend it as then you'll obsess over that instead

Here is an example from the FlyingSpanners.net stats:

 	  Uniques: Pageviews:	 Hits: 	 Transfer:
Today 		29 	983 	10401 	0.87 GB
Monday 		91 	1673 	15664 	1.35 GB
Sunday 		39 	358 	2116 	0.19 GB
Saturday 	62 	392 	2155 	0.16 GB
Friday 		64 	432 	2519 	0.22 GB
Thursday 	70 	541 	3214 	0.25 GB
Wednesday 	85 	818 	5379 	0.43 GB
Tuesday 	167 	1835 	10255 	0.82 GB

The stats have gone up since we started putting more and more content on. I haven't bothered with keywords, metatags or all that.

At the end of the day if you get 10000 hits a day but no-one actually buys anything, then your website may as well not be there. If you get 10 hits and they all find exactly what they were looking for, you're a winner.