Hello Ross: I recently opened my business on-line at . We submitted to numerous search engines on three separate occasions. I frequently see companies (my competitors) listed in the top ten on some very popular engines. My address never comes up. What do I need to do to get listed? Because we are a start up company we cannot afford some of the fees being asked. I am open for advice from the expert.
Thank You! – Hugh C, President
Hello Hugh,
First of all I really like your site. It is original and it has class, bravo! That is an all-too-rare situation these days.
Now down to business, I would like to make a few suggestions about your design. My focus is always to remove boundaries from within a web site asap. Your site currently has one major road-block for the search engines… the splash page. On a designers note, I have enjoyed splash pages in the past because I have had so much fun making them, however, from the SEO point of view they are often disastrous. Just applying these general concepts will make the reason clear:
1. The more steps you add before a search engine finds your relevant and valuable content, the less likely you are to achieve desired placement. Especially in the short term.
2. Most search engines index only the home page of your site and then move on. They will come back later (sometimes more than a month later) to deep-spider the rest of your web site and in some cases they only go a limited number of levels deep.
3. The home page of your web site has to have something for search engines to index. This means spiderable text (not within a graphic), a proper set of meta tags and a carefully thought-out title. I would also throw in a set of textual links at the bottom of the page. This will provide direct access to the various levels of your web site directly from the home page.
Simply put, splash pages are all too often content starved and very little work is put into making them search engine friendly because they are considered only a stepping stone into the main web site. Unfortunately this stepping stone happens to be where all of the spotlights shine and its hard to have a show if there is nothing to see.
Solutions
For your site to increase in rankings you can either upgrade the splash page and include text, meta tags and a textual linkmap at the bottom – or simply remove it. I recommend removal because it is the simplest and fastest route to success. Once you have removed this formidable barrier to the search engines you will have a significantly better chance of achieving top placements.
Sincerely yours,
Ross Dunn
Ross Dunn is the CEO and founder of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc., an SEO firm that has been providing expert services since 1997. Rosss considerable experience in the world of search has made him a respected writer for countless publications and an SEO consultant for small business and Fortune 500 web properties.
