Go Dumaguete! Debuts at Google Today
Am so happy. This Go Baguio! webmaster is proud to announce that her Go Dumaguete! website debuted today at Google at search position no. 44 of about 723,000 for top keyword “dumaguete” and no. 31 of 562,000 for “dumaguete city.” It was crawled by Yahoo! a few days after publication mid January but I had a harder time getting it into Google. And to think, Yahoo charges for site submission. (see comments below). It could not be found on Google yesterday at all. And I know they re-index every Tuesday at 4:00 pm Philippine time. Next job, to inch slowly to page 1.
The website is on trial run, has about 14 pages published, and is taking longer to complete than I estimated originally because it seems that it will be a bigger website than Go Baguio! even.
So what is my formula for getting found by the crawlers?
1. Concentrate on content more than design. Search engines don’t care about the look at all, only the designer’s clients do. So what would be the point of creating a pretty website that can be found only in the depths of the search engines? Depending on the readership you’re trying to attract, design a site that is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. I noticed that websites that are funky and visually very noisy attract the young. But sometimes, the ones who will actually “buy” your product are older.
2. Keyword analysis. Research on the top keywords for your niche. If there are too many supplying the demand, find a niche that you can conquer, and move up from there to other keywords. Do not aspire to be on page 1 of a keyword that is too popular. For example, is your site so huge you can be found when a web surfer types in “philippines?” like ABS CBN (Yahoo) or Wikipedia (Google)? Maybe you can be No. 1 when it comes to “philippine medicinal plants,” if you are writing about herbs and oils.
3. Use Google’s webmaster tools. It provides analytic tools and a lot of support to get your site found by their spiders.
4. Lots of prayer, then redesign. Once you’ve done your best, know that you cannot control or influence the top search engines, even if you beg. So you have to pray and then do some redesigning. Someone once so wisely remarked that “writing really means re-writing” until your work is ready for publication. The same goes for websites, since content is paramount. Without trying to put down the great designers there, please understand that you lure them with content and keep them coming back with a beautiful design (and more content to boot), not vice versa.
5. Have fun with it. There’s really no point in doing all this unless you love it. If you blog for only yourself, then who cares about the search engines? But if you are selling a product, like I am, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) skills are necessary. Yes, dear friends, Baguio and Dumaguete are products. Am I getting paid though? Of course not! Like I said, you just have to have enjoy what you’re doing!
I never figured to use Baguio Insider as a web design & marketing tips journal, although I did mention that it would contain my notes as webmaster, but if it helps others make better websites, why not?
Related Post: Off to Dumaguete
FYI, Yahoo! doesn’t charge for site submission: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
Good morning…it is fun, isn’t it? But also can get soooo frustrating because, as you said, there is no way to control the search engines.
I noticed that Google and Yahoo! haven’t done a very good job of indexing your site so far. Ever do a search for “site:www.godumaguete.com” on either engine? That will show you how many pages have actually been indexed. My experience has shown that Google is much faster at finding the pages in my site than Yahoo! Of course, I have a blog hosted on a Google-owned server (Blogger), so perhaps that is why
You don’t have to pay Yahoo! to get indexed, by the way. I think they offer that Submit Express service for merchants who want instant exposure. Eventually, Yahoo! will find your site, though, like I said, some of your interior pages may not be noticed for a while.
I’m trying to learn all of the nuances of SEO, but it gets frustrating when you do something that should improve rankings, but then you find yourself 50 spots back. You can include “high-quality and relevant in-bound links” to your formula. Google loves those. In the end, even the SEO “experts” can’t agree on what factors are most important, however.
Having fun is crucial though
Hi Corey & Dean,
Thanks for dropping by!
Dean, thanks for the link. That IS the simplest way. I probably saw that $299 price tag at the Yahoo Directory submission page (although that, too, has free submission options), and thought that was the same thing as Yahoo Search. Am such a Google girl in that I know where to go to get results from it, but am unfamiliar with Yahoo. Turns out, it’s just as easy!
Corey, http://www.godumaguete.com was indexed by Yahoo much sooner than Google, which is why I was surprised, considering I thought my site was optimized for the latter. I did not even have to “suggest” the site to Yahoo. And yes, Blogger sites do have an edge at Google, of course.
This Wordpress blog is a consolidation of all my prior blogging attempts & posts at Blogger & Typepad, and the domain http://www.i-baguio.com is new. It does not appear at either search engine yet, I believe, and so your tips come in very, very handy.
Thanks so much. Appreciate it!
Hello Lisa…notice I did not make any mention of MSN
I once liked MSN because they ranked me very high, but then one day my site was no longer in their search database. I’ve read that MSN has instability issues, and that sites will suddenly disappear, only to reappear weeks or months later.
There are lots of online resources, as I’m sure you know. I made reference to the following article, which lists some important ranking factors…and is complete with “expert” opinions regarding the level of their importance:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#8
Pag-ayo-ayo!
Hi Corey,
Thanks for link. I use http://www.realtracker.com for my site statistics, and they have complete info regarding the search engines that folks use to access my site: yahoo about 55%, google about 35% and all the rest share the 10%. So MSN, although it positions http://www.gobaguio.com consistently on page 1 for my desired keyword “baguio,” does not bring in too many visitors.
And since I thought I would have to pay for Yahoo submission, I was concentrating on Google. Real Tracker gives pretty complete info although I haven’t been able to synchronize my timezone with theirs.
Hello Lisa…you might also want to look into Google Analytics as another stat tool to consider. It has a really clean interface and is quite easy to use (and it’s free).
It’s okay to concentrate on Google, since they have a 50% to 60% share of the market by themselves, and are a word in the dictionary (to “google” something officially means to search for it online).
One word of advice….try not to look at your rankings too often. You’ll quickly develop a manic-depressive personality that way
One hour you’ll be up several spots, but the next hour you’re suddenly on page 10. Your happiness can turn to frustration quickly 
In the past, I’d go from #12 on Yahoo! to “nowhere to be found in the first 10 pages”. A few days later I’d jump to #9 all of a sudden. Can be maddening for sure.
Hi Corey. I agree with you, especially about the search engines! Don’t worry, I was just happy that http://www.godumaguete.com was indexed finally.
The reason this post mentions the position number is that when your site finally appears in the search engines, you have no way of knowing where, unless you start scanning all 50,000 pages for Dumaguete! I found this cool tool: Google Website Position Search and that’s how I found out quickly!
Good luck to all of us!
Lisa,
Congratulations! The site looks great!
thanks, glad you like it. i love wordpress!
Went ahead and put a link to your Dumaguete site on the blog. In-bound links from similarly themed sites are good
thanks, corey!
and i will be sure to link your blog, too, as soon as the link directory is up. am working hard on the site so it can be completely up and running in, hopefully, two weeks, way before the summer break starts.
i was able to get so much material while i was there (that my uncle is mayor helped a lot - hahaha!) because my cousins really showed me around places i had never been to during previous visits. and next week they’re coming up to baguio, too!
hope everything’s going well with you …
This is a n ice website. By the way there are are already strawberries grown in Valencia, a town next to Dumaguete going west to the mountains.
Yup, Valencia is has low temperatures like Baguio. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I love Dumaguete — you have cool mountains a few minutes away! Like Baguio. And the Siliman campus is prettier than any university we have here.
I still have to complete the Go Dumaguete! website, which requires one more trip to coordinate with my cousin, Tincho Perdices. Will link up your site, too!