Tile Contractor Web Sites

[jondon]

John, I did a little searching today to do some more learning. I punched into Google..... "Hershey tile bathroom"

This is the area I want to come up in amongst areas. So what did I find?

The first trio of sites for instance were contractor advertising sites:

Yellow pages.com
ServiceMagic.com
businessfinder.com
Lershermarble.com
Craigslist(a specific ad. didn't check but I think it might have been from last year I had one on there)

First question to you, since this really is an important area how do I get above those sites? Does a place like ServiceMagic have an unfair advantage on me or not?

Looked at www.Leshermarble.com

Very impressive site not only looking but the code. Notice how I am paying attention to the code now Good looking does not mean good working, that is a big one learned this past week.


reading verbatim:

<title> Marble Harrisburg PA Granite Ceramic Tile Countertops Bath Rooms

my(jondontile) title reads "home"

Obviously I have nothing there but it makes the point people aren't typing in "home" and if they are they are not looking for me.....lol

Another major difference, code page one they have "keywords" I don't even see that on mine unless I am overlooking it.

This site has like 8 lines of it. Probably over 100 words and not all single words.

My big question John, didn't you say the robots only read like 15 of these or something along these lines. 100's of words would obviously give them an unfair advantage or are these being wasted. That is my big question as I read the source code for that Home page.

From what I have learned so far is they are wasting words or does it do more bad than good to have that many key words. They came up right after the big three so maybe it is just what is there in the first part of the key works.

Enlighten me.

Also they link to places that are probably linked back to them that I can't tell. I can see why you wouldn't want have too many. For instance who you get your tile from, the JB Forum site, place you get plumbing stuff from, etc.

I guess I would have to actually go the other sites to see if they are linked to each other like John recommdened. Wouldn't that be the main reason to link to others I know you want us to exchange links but not sure why if we all do tile. Is that just for mapping? You said we can overdo it too on that, please esplain

Lastly, excuse my ignorance on this subject this is all new but I can see how vital to my game and everyone here who has a site..... Hammy Everyone sits down and googles, cause it's simple If you have a site you have to make that connection from user to site. SEO is a big part of it we now know the importance.

[bathroomremodeler]

Hammy,

If or when you decide to do a website ... think about incorporating what you do and where you do it in the web address.

Most potential searchers will type in "Tile Installer" or "Tile Installation", so if your web address was www.tullahomatileinstallation you would have a higher ranking possibility than if the address was www.TJConstruction

In my opinion on the individual webpage name (meta tags) everyone needs to find what a popular search keyword is for your type of work and then include it along with city.

If you used the title, Ceramic Tile in New York ... it is going to be different than if you used Tile Installation in New York. This is because "tile installation" is a more popular search keyword than "ceramic tile installation".

just my 2 cents

[bathroomremodeler]

Also, if you live in a major city with a lot of competing websites it is harder to get ranked on the first search page, than it would in a small town. Sometimes whatever you do ... you won't get on the first page in a large city.

However, if you add web pages that include small towns around the large city ... you could easier get a high ranking, because fewer people are concentrating on that small city.

[Tiger Mountain Tile Inc]

I have to admit this seems low to me. My guess is you are probably not maximizing your ad revenue (no one is complaining).

http://www.siteworthchecker.com/johnbridge.com


If you scroll down the link, it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic from India.

[StoneTooling]

Also, it was mentioned earlier how important backlinking is (having your link appear on another site). I don't want to get ahead of the conversation but create a Facebook page or a Yelp page for your business. Since sites like that already have great Google ranks, you can get your URL ranked higher. These are simple things that take no technical knowledge and can be done in minutes.

[StoneTooling]

I have to admit this seems low to me. My guess is you are probably not maximizing your ad revenue (no one is complaining).

I wouldn't hold much value in these sites. There are values to websites that can't be calculated based solely on gathered statistics.

[jondon]

We are trying to address the basics here lets not get off track. These basic things are what most of us lack so they are critical. As for worth, most of us would be in the negative if you put a value on our sites....lol

Guess I'll have to call JB direct to get answers, I know I can count on him

posted by Jim:
If you scroll down the link, it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic from India.

Someone esplain that one.

[John Bridge]

Hi Jesse,

Your site looks good. I don't see a robots tag, but maybe you can live without it. I don't know that it's absolutely essential, but I think the robots appreciate it. Kind of like putting out milk and cookies, and it makes their job easier.

I don't know what space you're talking about.

You'll be interested in what we have to say about content, especially new content -- coming up next.

[John Bridge]

Jon and all,

There are a bunch of sites telling you what you're worth. Fact is, they have no way of knowing, and if you check several of them, they'll be different -- way different.

You may never beat someone like Service Master because they have full-time web people who are knowledgeable in SEO and SEM (search engine marketing). The other thing is, there is such a thing as paid positioning. Pay Google enough and your site could come up at the top of the page.

Having a bunch of words in a "keyword" metatag is worth nothing, as search bots ignore those tags and their contents.

Having a few extra words in your title and your description won't hurt anything. Having an excessive number of words and phrases might hurt you. Google is constantly trying to keep folks from taking undue or unfair advantage of the system. They impose penalties on sites, and in some cases they will ban sites from their index. You can find a few current parameter on Google. They'll tell you what and what not they want to see. The details are secret, though. But they are common sense.

I catch myself thinking of bots as humans, but it's not a totally bad idea. Bots are programmed to think like humans as much as possible, and that makes it easier for you to try to figure out what they are looking for. Humans won't like a bunch of obviously unrelated keywords, for example. Neither will the bots. Humans won't like sites that try to fool them. Neither will the bots, and so on.


Do the things we are discussing here. We are about to get into content and the importance of NEW content. It's one of the biggies if not THE biggie. JB.com currently has about 300,000 pages indexed in the search engines, and those pages are constantly in flux -- new pages are added every day. I guess you can say Google bots like "change."

Let's make sure we understand what we've talked about up to this point, though. Jon mentioned calling me, and I invite anyone of you to call me. Do it from a cell phone. If you don't have my number, shoot me a PM and I'll give it to you.

P.S. The reason I want calls from cell phones is because my plan doesn't charge for them. My minutes are counted only when I'm talking to a land line.

[ceramictec]

Originally Posted by Jondon

Quote:
posted by Jim:
If you scroll down the link, it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic from India.
Someone esplain that one.

those are all Spam bots trying to sign up on the JB forum and spam pharmaceutical posts or whatever.

[eurob]

John,

Could you show us how the linking should look like on the page? A banner or a simple website address will suffice ? Thanks.

[Hammy]

This way over my head at the moment.

I'm trying to wrap my arms around it.

Hammy

[Levi the Tile Guy]

It seems like about 20% of the hits on my site are from foreign countries mostly eastern Asia, is anybody elses like this?

One source alot of them come from is forex-ninjas.com all of these are from Asian islands.

[jondon]

posted by Hammy:
This way over my head at the moment.

I'm trying to wrap my arms around it.

Hammy don't worry, if I had not just had a website made(hint, hint) and spoke with JB over the phone for him to explain it I would be in the same boat.

JB you answered my questions so I don't need to call at the moment. So basically that website with all those keywords is a waste and they could even be penalized. You have to ask well then why are they are they all there, same reason I don't have any

You answered the question about Service Master too, don't know if that was intentional....lol So I guess what your saying is if you can't beatem joinem. I had a bad experience with them but might have to give them another shot, before I didn't narrow my target area and that may have been my and their downfall. People want someone fairly close.

With being a member of the NTCA I member them giving a special deal for members since I think they linked up with partnership. There is that linking up thing again.

Levi maybe it falls into the category of what Brian was talking about.

[Levi the Tile Guy]

that is what I was thinking. I am sure not going to type in that address but I did google forex and that is foreign exchange trading, and I have a number of hits from other forex sites so I am pretty sure it is something like that.