So, this goes out to all the web-heads out there. I created a website in Dreamweaver (www.thecenutyrroofing.com ), and its been up for over a year now... plenty of time for Google to do a crawl, right? (and yes, I submitted the url to them). But if anyone types in "Century Roofing" nothing comes up. I was wondering what gives...
Somebody told me that Google can't "see" content on pages made in Dreamweaver. (Something to do with how Dreamweaver codes??) Is this true? If it is, how do I get around it?
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
I'm pretty sure Google can "see" content created in Dreamweaver, but that's all I can say. I'm neither a search engine expert nor a Dreamweaver expert. Based on the code I've seen generated by Dreamweaver, though, I'm pretty sure Google can index it.
I did a google search on "Century Roofing" and it looks like your site is competing with a company named "Century Roofing", which has branches in quite a few states. When I did a search for "The Century Roofing", your site came up, in position #7.
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
The code is bad, but the reason google doesn't see you probably has to do to lack of backlinks etc.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
You're the first link on the second page of search results. (The 11th result).
Search term "Century Roofing", with quotation marks.
Google can see the page content. What parts of the content it considers relevant is probably nontrivial to understand, although I think the page title is one key element. (Which is why you rank so high in the search results.)
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Dreamweaver just makes html. Google has no issue with html, even very bad html (which you certainly can create with Dreamweaver, though you can also make very good html with it).
Your site doesn't look too bad, search engine-wise. I would take the following steps:
Move the links out of the image map to on the images directly (you're already doing mouseovers). Give the images more descriptive names, and appropriate alt tags. Add the basic meta headers, particularly description.
The biggest thing will be to get people to link to your site (and not link farms, of course).
Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
What about metatags? Use (relevant) keywords, including the name of the company and location keywords. You want people to find your company even if they don't know the name, right?
Also, check SEO - search engine optimization. There are plenty of tips for getting your site ranked higher. Think like a searcher to increase your traffic has good tips like including alt tags for graphics.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
This looks to me like less an SEO problem and more a branding problem. Century Roofing is way too generic of a name. I mean, it's possible that you could take the top spots away from those that are already there, but it'd be a lot easier to rebrand yourself as something like Century Roofing LA. Something that people would actually Google, but that wouldn't capture results from across the country.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
From what I understand, most search engines do not use meta tags anymore. I'm pretty sure that Google doesn't use them for its ranking purposes.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I think Google still pays some attention to your idea of what your page is about (the meta tags for keywords, basically), if that matches up roughly with what they think your page is about.
And Google definitely still uses the description tag, just not to influence your search results. For many searches, that will be the text snippet returned for your website, and is thus very important to have.
Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
The site says "three generations in roofing" which leads me to believe that the company has had that name for some time. Changing the website name to centuryroofingla.com might help.
But you also want to bring in people who have never heard of Century Roofing and therefore won't be searching for that particular name.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Your century roofing site came up #8 on my Google search.
Still, you've got some problems with the site. In IE7, it has some formatting problems. I didn't try looking at it in Firefox or Safari so it might look fine there.
As others have said, it's not Dreamweaver that's the problem. I'd do some research into SEO to increase your rank. I'd also add at least one other URL for the site, as 'thecenturyroofing' is awkward. Centuryroofingla.com sounds much better.
It would also help for the company to join associations that will refer to the site on their site. Referrals from other legitimate industry sites often help in SEO ranking.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
It came up #6 on my google search... I wonder why it was #8 on jeniwren's only moements ago?
But I'd think the main thing you need to do is get other sites (that are known to google) to link to your site.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Tres, apparently I can't count. It's coming up #6 for me too.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Hi, jeniwren! Posted by Sm34rZ (Member # 8609) on :
How strange. It is number 6 now! I haven't done anything since I last posted either. Hmmm.
Also... I'll have to check out the site in IE 7... I pretty much use firefox.
I think I'll see if I can get "centuryroofingla.com" and recommend it. It does seem like a much better option.
Thanks everybody for all your feedback!
I don't care what anybody else says about you, hatrack peeps are OK in my book! :-)
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
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