Just Published My First Web Site

[FranknDiane]

Hi, I'm not only new to this forum, but I just published my First website a few weeks ago. It is a small business I am trying to get started, slide show productions. So far I have submitted my site to Yahoo, MSN and goggle,along with whatever free search engines I was able to find. I'm learning all this on my own, so I am going by the 'trial and error' method! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Can I give my website for any of you more knowledgeable folks out there to give me an opinion? I'm not sure of the rules.I've been reading a few things about SEO. What exactly is that? Thanks in advance for your help........ Diane

[torka]

Take a look over at the right hand column, under ebooks. You'll see "Zero Dollars, a Little Talent and Thirty Days." That's a free ebook written by our own Jennifery Laycock that will possibly give you a whole bunch of starter ideas for promoting your site. If you've got a little money to spend (not all that much, really), I highly recommend the "Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing", also by Jennifer.

You will also find some good website marketing ideas here, just look around and feel free to ask any specific questions you might have. The folks here are very generous with their time and expertise. Two other resources I've found useful and reliable are the Cre8asite Forums and the HighRankings forums (full disclosure: I'm a moderator at HR).

Hope this helps!

--Torka

[FranknDiane]

Thanks Torka..already I'm getting some good suggestions. So much to learn!!! Thanks again!

[TAAZ]

Diane -- it would also be helpful if you'll eventually post the URL of your site in the "Review" section ... many new site owners make numerous mistakes in their site coding, which can often keep your site from being indexed.

Scratch that for now - I saw your site in the profile; you do have alot of code warnings that need to be fixed ... using SiteBuilder may be a problem, if you don't have access to all of the files.

[FranknDiane]

Oh boy, now show my inexperience,what is a code warning, and how can I fix it?

[TAAZ]

See? That's what I mean when inexperienced site owners use "pre-made" templates, such as SiteBuilder and many others -- you don't even know if your site has code errors/warnings; nor do you know if your site displays properly in all browsers ... that alone can hurt you.

First thing you need to do is, place the correct mandatory <!DOCTYPE Declaration> at the top of your site -- how do you do that? Simple -- go to the W3C schools website shown here and read up on which one is correct for your site.

Then, you have one major code warning that appears numerous times -- <script> isn't allowed in <tr> elements ... we'll cover this after you've found, and placed the correct Doctype Declaration in your HTML syntax.

[FranknDiane]

I am looking at that link you told me to go to and 2 things, I'm not sure which one is right for my site, then when I went to site builder to see where I'd put it, I'm not even sure about that. I am so sorry I'm such an amateur, but I am a fast lerner...thank you for your patience!

[FranknDiane]

Hi, I've been doing research and have found where to put it and I think I put the right one in. Check it out and let me know whats next...Thanks so much

[zoobie]

Just saw your site and it's not bad at all. It's an interesting business.

You'll learn a lot of things here at SBB. Best of luck!

[TAAZ]

Congrats Diane for doing this on your own!

Next; your "meta tags" are scattered everywhere -- it's good practice to place all of your meta tags in the same group, always right after your Title tag; this will come in handy in case you need to do changes later.