SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part VI - Return of the Taxi
If you thought we'd let Joe's Taxis gather dust in West London you were wrong. Far from being abandoned to the internet ether we've kept tabs on how the 'mythical' west London taxi business was doing six months down the line, after being set up by Joe. As far as rankings go, the two domain names are doing very nicely thank you.
For an update on how Joe's London Taxis and West London Taxis have changed in their rankings with the major search engines, read on.
In Joe's SEO article (SEO III) on Friday, March 16 2007 he had began his submissions process to Google, Yahoo and MSN. By Tuesday, March 27 2007, Joe's sites had found their mark with at least two of the major search engines. And by June his site had managed some success (check out his last article, "SEO V"):
June 12
- "West London Taxi" - number 7, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Google.com)
- "West London Taxi" - number 2, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Yahoo.com)
- "West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (msn.com)
Yesterday, we used the same set of keywords - "west london taxi" and "joes london taxis" - and we got the following results:
December 12
- "West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Google.com)
- "West London Taxi" - number 1, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (Yahoo.com)
- "West London Taxi" - number 6, "Joes London Taxis" - number 1 (msn.com)
So, what have we done? Well, to be honest, nothing. But this does go to show you that with some solid groundwork in the early stages of your journey to the dark side of SEO you can actually get your site or sites into a very good position on the page rankings of the major search engines. However, if you resubmit your domain name (URL), keep your content fresh and get some incoming links from popular sites then you can ensure your site has a much better chance of achieving and maintaining a top ranking.
A reminder
Just to highlight the steps Joe took all those months ago, remember that search engines do look for consistency and relevancy in a number of different areas of your in-page content and referral links. These include:
- The URL (or address) of your site (or specific pages on your site), e.g. www.joeslondontaxis.com, or www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking, etc.
- Your site name or title (and page titles) being published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company", or "London taxi bookings page"
- Your site and page keywords meta data published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxis, London taxi, Joes taxis, West London taxi, etc."
- Your site and page description meta data published in the HTML, e.g. "London taxi company provides taxi services..."
- Your page content, e.g. the text that is on your page and relevant to your site name, keywords and description
- Links on your page, including the anchor text, e.g. the text on which the link is set, e.g. "Book a west London taxi" links to http://www.joeslondontaxis.com/taxibooking
- Images on your page, including the name of the image file (or Alt text)
- Referral links to your site or specific pages on your site, e.g. a link on another site (incoming links) referring to your site
Points 1-7 are easily within your control as they all relate to the contents of your site and all can be easily managed through your SiteMaker site. Point 8 requires linking to your site from other external sites, which is less easy to achieve, though there are a number of ways in which you can go about doing this.
If you haven't yet had a read of Joe's articles and you are interested in getting your site listed or improving the rankings of your site, then the easiest way to find the articles is just enter "SEO" in the Moonfruit Lounge search.
Finally
Just remember, as Joe has already mentioned, SEO isn't everything. It certainly plays a big part in marketing your website but traditional off-line publishing methods still play a crucial part in the overall marketing strategy of any site. Good luck, persist with your search engine optimisation, and be patient. It doesn't happen overnight but if you follow our guidelines it will happen.
More Articles about SEO
SiteMaker and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Part I (In the beginning - the 1st in this series by Joe)
SiteMaker, Flash and SEO (Why SiteMaker works with SEO)
Comments
Having read through this blog I am busy implementing the information provided but I am curious about the HTML view provided by SiteMaker to the Search Engines. When I view my site in HTML it is all jumbled up i.e. it is not displayed in the same order as in the Flash version. I do not expect it to look the same but my text is all mixed up as well. I use multiple text boxes on my screens to give them the desired column/boxed look but SiteMaker reads horizontally when creating the HTML. As text positioning also effects SE rankings I would like to control this more accurately. Is there a way I can tell SiteMaker to group text boxes together for the HTML version so they still read correctly?
Hi Chris,
We are using an algorithm to calculate the importance of page elements e.g. grouped text (boxes) based on the size of the boxes, position on page and their proximity to other elements on the page. While not perfect, this algorithm still underscores the overall importance of your page content by giving text boxes and other elements at the top of the page a higher priority than those towards the bottom.
The algorithm ordering we apply may change how the elements are ordered in the HTML (compared to the visible page in Flash) but to be honest, the affect on page ranking would be negligible.
Using an algorithm to calculate the importance of page elements is still a new feature for us (and quite complex) so we are still working on it, so dealing with more complicated pages i.e. numerous elements with different shapes, sizes and positions, may take us some time to get completely right. However, what is currently being represented in HTML for the search engines will still ensure your site and page ranking will benefit if all other facets of SEO are followed.
Hope that helps.
Very interesting thread on the challenges of having success with the search engines.