Hi! I just finished my websites:

ouroodlesofdoodles.com

anewtail.com

I'm not coming up in Google when I look for them using key word searches. These are my first websites and I could use all the advice I can get!

Any advice from the web-design geniuses out there?

Liz Kirk

It's going to be tougher getting into Google's top pages. They are leaning more heavily on one-way links (to your site) as their primary popularity and importance factor. Kinda like the prom king/queen from high school. You'll have find well ranked sites to host links to your site, and have them place that link on a first page preferably (for most weight).

Does this mean you should abandon all the usual SEO practices? Not in my opinion, but just want to make you aware... I'd prolly worry more about the other search engines. This could be the straw that breaks Googles back. Alot of people are looking at them carefully because of their upcoming OS with it's high security risks, and it's not favorable. I feel that many will start to throw in the towel on the search engine as well.

This is merely my 2 cents, so don't bank everything on my ramblings

Just went to your site to check things out...

Your initial load time is about 15 sec's on my DSL (1.5Mbps download speed), this could be an unfavorable hit with search engines.

Also, forgot to ask... How long has it been published? How long since you submitted to search engines?

Liz,

Have you signed up for Google Webmaster tools and Analytics? If you have the webmaster tools, you can submit a sitemap and that may help Google find your site quicker. The analytics will let you know a lot about your visitors.

Hey Phil and Bill! Thanks for the quick replies!

Phil, the site has been up for around 6 weeks or so. How can I improve my load time? Is the picture quality too high? Thanks for checking out my site. I've also noticed the frustration with Google from others. It seems to be a popularity contest like you said and people try to scam their way onto the top 10.

Bill, I have google webmaster but not analytics. I'll make sure to check it out! Thanks!

For both of you. Does the design look solid? Any advice?

Liz Kirk

Elizabeth,

Your A New Tail site loads fast and looks interesting. I suggest you change the title to something other than "index" to help with your SEO.

On your Oodles of Doodles site, the meet the parents star is not clickable on the words.

It looks like you have put a lot of thought into both sites.

I use Firefox when viewing sites.

That's good advice from Bill on the sitemap. DO you own CC Google Sitemapper? It make's making a site map a breeze.

Also check out my post here:

http://www.coffeecup.com/forums/the-bre … -exchange/

I can give you plenty more tips on improving your SEO if you want. Just reply to this post and I'll look at your site and give you more ideas if you'd like me to.

Chad Spillars
http://www.disneysubmarines.com/

Elizabeth,

Check out this website and do a search for graphics programs. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

You will find a couple of good articles about image optimization and also links to free graphic programs such as GIMP. You can use the programs to reduce the file size of your images. That should help in load times.

Elizabeth,

I downloaded one of the images from the http://ouroodlesofdoodles.com/ website.

It was a bitmap image at almost 1M in size. Need to covert to JPG and compress the image.

I saved the picture in the JPG format and compressed it slightly. I can't upload in this forum, so I sent you the image in an e-mail.