Search engine question / site review - newbie

[DancingGeek]

Greetings,

I'm trying to help out some friends with a site, and my knowledge is pretty limited. The page is designed and functional. I did not do it, so let the criticisms fly.

http://www.boisehomesales.com

They are frustrated with not being visible on search engines, and I'm trying to get up to speed so I can help. One of their competitors,

http://www.startpackingidaho.com

comes up consistently on the first page of search engines, and I'm not sure how to tell what is making that happen. I think the keywords could be better, what else would help?

I read the site recommended on another post -

http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/index.php

- and it recommends registering with Yahoo for $300/year and spending about another $75 on others, to speed up the process of being picked up by crawlers. What are your thoughts on this? They would be fine to spend the money if necessary, but I don't want to blow $$$ unless it will really be beneficial. The advice makes sense to me, but....what do I know?

Any guidance is appreciated.

Cheers!
~geek

 

[Foamcow]

Getting a paid inclusion on Yahoo! will help your ranking a little since Yahoo! is seen as a good, trustworthy site. Consequently your site gains some kudos by being linked to on Yahoo!
It will also speed things up slightly, but not a great deal I should imagine.

Getting links in to the site from reputable sites is always a good thing to improve ranking.

Now...
I have to go but I will check back later and see if I can offer any more help.
I am sure others will get there first though

http://www.foamcow.com

"I'm making time

 

[xtendscott]

I ran a backlink search in Google "Results 1 - 6 of 6 linking to

http://www.boisehomesales.com/".

Link Developement, getting other sites to link to yours is the first area that needs worked on. OnPage stuff of your site doesn't look to bad. The more competitive the area more quality links are needed.

Real Estate is pretty competitive even in a specific region. The Large sites target every city and town.

Find Directories, Local Chamber office, Web Advertisements. Just ask for a True

 <a href="[URL unfurl="true"]www.mydomain.com">Boise[/URL] home sales and real estate</a>
<a href="[URL unfurl="true"]www.mydomain.com"><img[/URL] src="myimage.gif" alt="Boise home sales and real estate"></a>

This part of site developement just takes time.

Also, everything behind the MLS search is hidden to SE's(they don't click buttons). It would not hurt to create pages for "current listings" for homes less than 100,000; 100,000 - 150,000, ect. Think of common things people would want and give them easy access to that.

xtendscott
Web Site Design and CF Programming

 

[DancingGeek]

Find Directories, Local Chamber office, Web Advertisements. Just ask for a True
CODE
<a href="

http://www.mydomain.com">Boise

home sales and real estate</a>
<a href="

http://www.mydomain.com"><img

src="myimage.gif" alt="Boise home sales and real estate"></a>

Could you please explain this to me? I should ask them to include this link in their list of links, is that right? What kind of directories/advertisements do you recommend?

Thanks!
~geek

 

[xtendscott]

DancingGeek,

Yahoo is a directory(paid of course), DMOZ(ODP)

http://www.dmoz.org/

is free just tough sometimes to get listed. Local Chamber usually will list members(ask for a link, offer the above links but they may just want to use the URL.

Find Real Estate related forums and participate in discussion, some allow "signatures" that can have links in them to the site(ie my posts). Find niche directorys for real estate, and submit.

Run backlink searches for competitive sites. google and yahoo use "link:

http://www.domain.com"(no

quotes)

Search Google for "Link Development Forum". It will give you some good sites to read for much more info.

xtendscott
Web Site Design and CF Programming