a la mode news & marketing tips — posted July 25, 2005

Not getting ranked on search engines? Here are five questions to ask yourself

As you know, the single most important thing you can do to increase your XSite's ranking with search engines is to have other relevant websites to link to yours.  As long as the websites you swap links with are live and legitimate, search engines will count that link as a "vote" for your site, thereby increasing your site's popularity in the search engines.  Plus, if the site that has a link to yours is already indexed, you will also receive a visit from the spiders that visit their site.

Whether you launched your XSite today or several months ago, it's important to keep in mind that no one can predict when your site will get ranked on a search engine.  That's because search engines keep their ranking criteria confidential and most won't disclose how often their spiders — computers that visit web pages to see what they are about — "crawl" websites.

In fact, Google says this:  "We add and update new sites to our index each time we crawl the web.  We do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear … The best way to ensure that Google finds your site is to have pages on other relevant sites to link to yours.  Google's robots jump from page to page on the web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to your pages, the more likely it is that we'll find them quickly."

If, despite your efforts, you're still concerned about your search engine rankings, you may want to ask yourself the following questions:

Do my content pages reflect me and my business? Customize your content pages to reflect you and your business. If all you've done is activate those pre-built content pages we're provided you, search engines won't see them as a unique entity and may even flag it as a duplicate site.  Try to include your business name within the text of the provided content pages. Or, re-word some of the text to reflect the way you would speak to a client or the way you do business.

Did I include a site map?
Having a page that lists all the links on your XSite gives search engine spiders an easy way to crawl through your site and gives your visitors an easy way to find information of your site if they're having a hard time.  To add a site map go to Step 6 of your XSite's Wizard and activate the "Site Map" page.

Did I set up my XSite's footer?
Along with your company name and contact information, you should also include Site Navigation in your footer so your site has text links to your XSite's content pages.  To do this, go to Step 8 in your XSite's Wizard and click on the box under "Site Navigation."

Does my site contain broken links?
Check any outside links on your XSite regularly to make sure they're active. Broken links keep search engine spiders from properly indexing your site.

Do each page's description and keywords effectively represent the content on the page?
Each page of your site should have an enticing description and include unique keywords.  We have pre-populated the keywords and description sections of your XSite with the terms we have found to be the most effective for your marketing, including the counties you selected as part of your coverage area.  However, to make your site more "spider-friendly" you need to personalize both sections to reflect your business and local area market.  For example, combining the words "home loans" with your region, city and even a neighborhood within your city or other keywords specific to your local area can help your site capture a more relevant search return.

To view your content page's keywords and description, go to Step 6 in your XSite's Wizard and click on one of the content pages you've activated and scroll down to "Page Options."

And while you may already be familiar with our new Orlando Training Facility, we've recently expanded our Salt Lake City development office and legal affairs office in Washington, D.C.  Staffed by in-house counsel and lobbyists, the D.C. office addresses economic and policy issues of interest our customers, ranging from copyright protection of appraiser and agent data to "bubble-related" topics such as valuation processes and regulation.

Making improvements to better serve you
Of course, all of this expansion is exciting, but our focus still remains fixed on providing you superior products and customer satisfaction.  We're investing more than $1 million into new high-speed servers into production for CertMail to better manage heavy traffic load and alleviate any problems we've had over the past few weeks.  Our goal is to make your lives easier — not more complicated by system malfunctions.  We intend to keep adding hardware as needed to stay ahead of the curve. 

Briefly Speaking

If you have an idea, tip or feedback on any of our products, we'd love to hear from you!  Please e-mail us at info@alamode.com.