[Hidden-tech] Google search

[Jeff Rutherford]

Eugene:

Unfortunately, there's lots of answers to your question.

1. Have you updated your website with fresh content in the past year? Google's algorithm is heavily weighted towards fresh-new content. That's one reason many companies launch a corporate blog. If the blog is located on their website, and they're writing regular blog posts about industry-specific topics, that is usually keyword-dense content that helps in your rankings. FYI - I never recommend that people write keyword-specific blog posts. Write content that you're passionate about and that relates to the Museum, and the keywords will take care of themselves.

2. Inbound links - how many other sites are linking to your museum? Inbound links are still very much a gold standard for ranking high in Google. You should contact every organization that you're affiliated with - local chamber of commerce, museum organizations, etc. - and figure out if they will link to your website from theirs. 

Ask for links - are you email marketing to your donors and attendees? If so, explain the importance of inbound links, let them know that you want people to be able to find the Museum in Google, and ask them, if they're so inclined, to add a link from their personal blogs, websites, etc.

You can find out how many inbound links your site currently has by using Yahoo's site explorer - siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/  Also Google Webmaster Tools (free) has inbound link reports. The same with Bing's webmaster tools (free).

3. Local listings - is the museum listed as a local business in Google, Yahoo, Bing? Local listings are the local businesses that appear w/ a map when you do a search for "museum, Berkshires" etc. If not, you should do that too. 

http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter

http://listings.local.yahoo.com/

https://ssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx

4. Title tags - The title tag is weighted very heavily in Google's algorithm. Currently, your title tag on your main page is "Animagic-museum". 

You should consider rewriting your title tag to include specific, keywords that people may use in searching for the Museum. But, again, write in specific, coherent phrases and sentences NOT a list of your keywords. 

Off the top of my head something like "Berkshires - Western Massachusetts - museum of special effects and animation - Animagic"

Good luck. If you're interested in learning more about search engine optimization, I recommend a few blogs:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog

http://www.conversationmarketing.com/

http://www.wolf-howl.com/

Finally, if you want to read an exhaustive article about local search marketing, you should check out - http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

Believe me, the article is exhaustive. The writer interviewed top experts on local search marketing. A lot of what they're talking about may fly over your head. I've read the article several times and it still makes my head hurt. Lots and lots of info to digest. 

Jeff Rutherford
413-475-0087
jeff at jeffrutherford.com


On Jul 20, 2010, at 10:07 AM, eugene mamut wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> Hello HTers
> 
> We have Museum of Animation, Special Effects and Art in Lee. Last year we put keywords on main page of our website. Google search engine pickup this words, and we had a lot of hits to our website. This year we have much less hits. Yesterday I went to Google search and typed keywords : "Berkshire children activity, kids' fun, galleries, museum, family fun". Result : Our website did not appear.
> Question - Why keywords do not work anymore, and what we can do ?
> 
> Thank you
> Eugene
> Museum of Animation, Special effects and Art.
> 77 Main St. Lee, MA, Tel. 413-243-8095
> http://www.mambor.com/animagic/
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