Here is a list of the most common problems you may encounter in Search Engine Optimization and what to do about them.
Problem: No search engine listing for site
Solution:
1. Submit the site to Search Engines. See Getting listed in Search Engines
2. Submit the site to directories See - Web
Directory Listings
3. Link to the site from other sites or Web logs. You can try to get link exchanges, but owners of other sites aren't usually going to
want to exchange links with a new site.
4. Be patient - allow up to two weeks for Google, Yahoo! and MSN to list your site.
Problem: No search engine listing for page or pages
Solution:
1. Make sure there is a working full path link to that page from at least one page on your site that is already listed.
If the site map is not listed yet, then all the pages that are linked only from the site map will probably not be
listed.
2. Allow up to two weeks for Google to list a new page. Allow longer for other search engines.
3. Link to the page from an external Web site or Web log.
4. Submit the page separately to search engines and or directories if necessary.
Problem: Site/page has no pagerank in Google
(Google reports that no pagerank information is available)
Solution:
1. Allow 3 months before a new site gets page rank.
2. Make sure that other sites and pages have linked to the site or page.
3. Check (or have your Webmaster check) the code of the page to ensure that there are no major coding errors (for example
no <Body> tag). Pages will often display correctly in browsers even when the code is totally messed up.
4. Use a spider simulator to determine whether there is any bad code that is preventing the main page or other pages
from being crawled.
Problem: Low position in Google for your major keyword after several months.
Solution:
1- Check that the Page title and the title tag in the header contain only the keyword and that the description of the
page is appropriate.
2- Check that the keyword is about 1-5% of the text, is repeated at the bottom of the page.
3- If possible, use a tool like IBM or WebCEO to check page optimization versus the top ten pages for this category.
4- Increase the number of links to the page.
5- Check the number of back links to successful pages and the total number of pages with this keyword. Competition
may be too tough.
6- Please note - If the page is listed in the top 20 or 30 sites, tweaking the page itself may lower the listing
position. Getting more links that use the keyword is also helpful.
Problem: Despite high position in Google for your keyword, the page or site is not getting many visitors.
Solution:
1. Check that you have used the common spelling of the keyword and that it is not misspelled. See how many sites use
this spelling (Google tells you how many sites it retrieved) versus alternative possibilities.
2. Check the popularity of the keyword. You can use this tool:
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ or the trends facilities provided by Google (these do not give absolute
numbers) at http://www.google.com/trends or use
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
which does give absolute numbers or use:
http://www.technobloggie.com/keyword-tool/index.php
3. Note - "not getting many visitors" is relative. If you are getting 5 or 10 visitors a week for a top listing for a
popular word like "games" or "Paris Hilton" something is really wrong, but if you are getting that many visitors for a
page about an obscure Sanskrit poet, it might be a lot.
Notice: Copyright
All materials are copyright 2008 by Ami Isseroff. All rights reserved. These pages may not be reproduced in any
form in electronic or printed media without express written permission from the author.
