Search Engine optimisation (SEO) for a new small website

Micky_d

Hi , in the spirit of earning extra income I decided to launch my own small website. I did lots of research, used the knowledge that I had (and borrowed extra knowledge from a friend) to build our own website for free. The site looks great and we have managed to get the onsite SEO to over 80%.

The problem is now we are not ranking in google (we have indexed the site with substantial site map) to Google, bing etc. I have looked at at lots of places online for help with getting ranked (backlinks, blogs, social media) and everyone wants hundreds if not thousands for a short campaign that is not even guaranteed to work.

Has anyone been through this before, does anyone know where I could get some help with off site SEO that isn't going to defeat the object of setting up in the first place. I have set up social media and will be posting and tweeting etc. but any help that could point me in the right directing, even if it is somewhere where I could learn more about it I would be extremely grateful. My plan isn't to be a millionaire (I wish) but I want to get this off the ground and if it does have some degree of success I would like to put some of the proceeds to good local use.

any help would be appreciated. Thanks

LHW99

For DIY web ranking improvement try these:
1) submit to the open directory - its used by a range of search engines - see
http://www.seologic.com/faq/google-directory

2) find as many free business directories on the web (via google) and apply to list your site, and ensure the web-address is listed.

3) if you can, try and find colleagues in the same line who would provide a link to your site in return for you linking to theirs.

4) Change a (small) part of the site regularly - this can be as simple as updating pictures, wording, adding a new article.

The aim is to make your site look as big as possible, by having as many links as possible to and from other sites, and as interesting as possible. Both will attrack the crawler engines that google etc use. Its the engine's activities that rank the sites.

It takes several weeks for any of this to take effect, but it will do so.

tronator

• Google takes some time (weeks, months).
• Don't pay anyone for SEO
• have "good" content
• have a "responsive" website
• ...

London_Ash

LHW99's tips are from about 6 years ago, but your welcome to give them a go.

Google relies less and less on backlinks these days, especially low quality links from directories and the like.

The only links worth having are from high authority sites, such as news sites within articles etc.

Guest posting still works for getting some quality links back to your site.

It's more about social signals, great content and LENGTHY content now. A 1100 word article will rank much better than a 300 word article on most days in most topics.

Check out the Moz Q and A forums and browse. It's free to read.

Micky_d

Thanks everyone for your replies. All great and I will use them all.

If I could also ask, I read in a forum, people talking about a link wheel. Any ideas what this is? I presume that it is some software to generate back links but am unsure. If anyone has an idea it would help my curiosity. Once again thank you to everyone for your help

tronator

Micky_d wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies. All great and I will use them all.

If I could also ask, I read in a forum, people talking about a link wheel. Any ideas what this is? I presume that it is some software to generate back links but am unsure. If anyone has an idea it would help my curiosity. Once again thank you to everyone for your help

Google it.

Before you ask more such questions, as a rule thumb, don't try to trick search engines. It might work in short term, but eventually search engines will catch up and rank your site down.

Just create good content and people will link to your site.

Double_V

I believe SEO is now fading out.
Social media has taken over.

959Rich

99.9% of SEO experts are complete charlatans.

Be very careful with any information any of these guys gives you.

SEOing your way to number 1 on google for any competitive search term today is costly and a real gamble.

Google change their algorithm that often you may as well fly to Vegas and bang it all on red or black.