Building a website and linking it on Google

[CougTek]

I used the short HTML code page you guys made for Ddrueding as a base to create a website for a singer friend of mine. You can view my pathetic attempt at a website at the following address : www.karinegamelin.com Yes, it's in French.

She didn't have a website before and the only photos of her when searching her name on Google were from an audition she passed in 2005 and she's changed a lot since then. I'll also help her eventually to create a video of herself singing.

How do I link this simplistic, but existing website so that it pops up among the first results of a research about her on Google? I read that meta tags are dead, but I'm sure there are now better ways to get a high ranking on a given subject on Google.

Thanks

 

[Chewy509]

Hi Coug,

Basically, these days, there are a number of techniques that let you boost rankings in a Google/Yahoo/Bing search. All of these techniques come under the umbrella of "Search Engine Optimization".

Google has their own one published here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

But basically it comes down to:
1. Excellent but sparse use of meta tags. (Meta tags are still used, but not as much these days as you've noted).
2. Easily readable and highly relevant content.
3. Forward linked to other relevant sites.
4. Back links to your site that you want to have a higher ranking in Google.

IIRC, a lot of engines calculate your relevance score (or page rank) based on the last 3 points, and is largely based on graph theory and is based on the number of links that intersect your site. It's based on a web of trust and relevance.

How to get links out there: Advertising on Social Media (links on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Tumbler, Blogspot or any other large scale site). For example, one of my applications "gMTP" after publishing on Sourceforge was ranked something like 250th in the first week. However once blog posts (which included links to the main site) started appearing, posts in XDA forums started appearing, and a lot of Linux distributions started to include the application, the current search rank for "gmtp" is now #1. The only thing I can account for, is the number of links going to the main website...

But the best thing to do is read up on Search Engine Optimization. (There are companies out there that promote that they specialize in it and will get your site to #1, but take a lot of what they say as bullshit, a lot of what Google, Yahoo, Bing do is to filter out the garbage, and that relies on the web of links/trust).

 

[CougTek]

Thanks a lot!