Thinking of making my own 'Adverts' web page

[heatemyfather]

I have my own domain and thought it might be interesting and worthwhile to create a simple web page purely for adverts - banners, links, RSS, etc. Of course, these would all be things that I place there for things that I'm interested in, but if it gets google hits and the like then it should be a worth while exercise

Any hints for getting good google rankings? metatags, good body text, that sort of thing. Any google code I can put in there?

[madelaine]

notes from a workshop I attended...
Search Engine Visibility

No search engine company will release their criteria – they do not want websites carefully designed to achieve high scores on their sites so what follows is only a best guess.

Web Crawlers cannot see pictures of any sort so logos and pictures might as well not be there – first rule – they ALL need alt text which the webcrawler can read.

The text to the top left is the most important - that bottom right is the least.

Brainstorm what words someone you wish to find your site will be likely to type into Google. Make sure those words are there – put them in meta-tags but also in the text (no-one is sure whether Google reads meta-tags or not but the smart money says no).

Text in H1 is given more weight than other text (it is possible to code it H1 while making it appear a different size, as I am sure you know) – Title should be less than 80 characters if possible. It should contain keywords from your brainstorming session.

Many repetitions of a word are counter-productive – after 7 Google seems to ignore the rest.

Make all your pages attractive to webcrawlers and then make sure they all contain navigation back to your homepage (and probably to each other as well). This should be either across the top or down the LHS

Make sure your pages don’t require a huge monitor for the relevant stuff to show – people will scroll down but are not so willing to scroll sideways.

The Description is important – it is what will appear on the search engine summary page when your url is displayed – You have seen those ones which show up “Your browser is not set up to display frames”? That was the only text the browser could find to display on a page with frames!! (such pages are not good for search engines however beautifully they are designed).

LINKS – lots of links to your site from other sites - If the crawler finds links to your site it will have to go there, won’t it? You will have to pay for these with links back (badger all your friends).

Don’t try to sucker the crawler with irrelevent words – they have taken that into account now.

Make your site at least 5 pages – they seem to ignore smaller sites.

Don’t bother with text the same colour as the paper (thus rendering it invisible) – Google knows that trick.

Put Comment tags on every page – assume people will come into any one of them

[Xaos]

Just to ask, why would anyone visit an advertisement hoarding? Ask yourself what sites you visit during your time online? Today, I have accessed news sites, shopping sites, travel sites and hobby sites. Not once was I tempted to find sites that told me about other sites.

When I go driving (which I don't) I have never driven up to a big advert poster - they have always whizzed by as I travel to an interesting destination.

OR, have I misunderstood and you're planning on creating a website that offers advertising material for other people to use? Like eBid banners that I can use on my own websites, and flyers that I can print out? (Thought I'd best check what you meant.)

[heatemyfather]

Just to ask, why would anyone visit an advertisement hoarding?

I dunno, just thought it might attract some people searching for the type of things that I sell, if I include some RSS of my current auctions, or a list of the type of things I'm selling on here; that would be accompanied by links and an eBid banner of course. I'm not planning on making money from advertising, I just wanted to attract people to eBid and my auctions via any means possible.

There is nothing to stop me selling via my own website really, but having a place like eBid makes people feel a bit safer, I think, and provides a modicum of security to the whole process, not to mention increased visibility for my items, so I'll be trying to get Google hits for the eBid name associated with items I typically have for sale and direct them back here.

[heatemyfather]

Thanks for the tips madelaine, although I myself kinda knew most of that already.

[crazymama]

The forums are an excellent place for information. We all learn together.