No page rank yet for new sites...

Hi Everyone...

Basically, I am new to this site and I really like what I've seen here so far. I should mention that I've been a graphic designer for over 20 years and a web designer the last 5 years or so.

Here's my situation... I designed 2 different sites for 2 different clients and both sites went "live" in early July. Both sites have been properly optimized and all of the search engine submissions were done manually in addition to a lot of directory submissions (mostly reciprocal links). Both sites have an extensive Links page with mostly high page-ranked, related listings.

But both sites have still not been page ranked by Google. Since there is no page rank at all for either site, some sites won't link to my sites until they do have some PR, AND I can't get a good position in the search engines although I have really done all the work necesssary to get them both good listings.

So my question is this... first, how long does it take to get the "precious" Google PR and second, is there ANYTHING I can do to speed up the process? Like say a paid Overture acct or something like that?

One of my clients is totally willing to spend money to get her site noticed quicker. The other client probably is not. (She is disappointed I think because her paid ebook has not sold a single copy yet. I told her that nothing is going to happen overnight and that until we get a PR and get other sites to list her site and get her properly positioned, nothing will happen. Personally, I think she would be better off having it as a free ebook to attract traffic to her site, but she is set on a paid book.)

So does anyone out there have any suggestions? I am totally open to paid solutions or free solutions. I don't know if it will make a difference or not, but here are the URLs for both sites, in case that helps anyone. xxxhttp://www.amysticalcreation.com and xxxhttp://www.nlpublications.com/mobile_notary

Thank you all in advance. I hope to hear from someone out there!

Teri
T&I Grafix
Creative Design for Web & Print

Hello Teri, and welcome to SEOChat,

You will be able to post active links in your signature after 100 posts and 90 days of membership.

EVERYONE here is tapping their toe for pagerank updates. We have not seen one for a couple months and it is way overdue. The good news is that google calculates it internally and gives your rankings credit even if it has not been posted to the toolbar.

ALso, google seem to be running in slow motion right now - especially for new sites. I have a new site of about 100 pages that went live in early July and it is still not showing much in the SERPs or showing pagerank. Patience is needed.

If you need traffic right away you can pay per click at google adwords or overture.

Well, a few things.....#1 a "beloved" PR by Google is not the be-all to end-all....#2- and most important I see you have put more focus on the PR and little on the sale of the book. I would be more concerned with the conversion of the visitor in to a sale.

Do you have stats on the site? Have you noticed patterns through the site? Are there places where traffic seems to "lagg-up"?

Try to compile the Java into a file that could sit at the bottom of the code if your client is set on the roll-over images. Visiting the site- I do not immediatley see the "Sell" or "offer". Ask her to gove a chapter away for free- but make it look like in the "sell" that the book is being given away. Intice the customer to make the "conversion trigger".

Your linking strategy seems fair- if you are looking to get that immediate boost try buying some links of higher PR for a month or two for the client. If it is sales (for me it is always sales- if there are sales...how can I get more!) then try a small PPC budget and use the conversion tool to track and show proof.

My guess is if noone is buying the book- there is something wrong with the site, or "sell".

Get stats- show "proof" of some kind of traffic....
Get a bait-n-switch sale offer in there - make it known and unmistakeable when you go anywhere on the site....

Another thing- I always get my customer involved- make them do some legwork. Have them brainstorm and see what of the business interestes are and how
you can offer a trade-link, or harvest some important text anchor links to her site.

Good Luck!

Dwight



[QUOTE=tteri77]Hi Everyone...

Basically, I am new to this site and I really like what I've seen here so far. I should mention that I've been a graphic designer for over 20 years and a web designer the last 5 years or so.

Here's my situation... I designed 2 different sites for 2 different clients and both sites went "live" in early July. Both sites have been properly optimized and all of the search engine submissions were done manually in addition to a lot of directory submissions (mostly reciprocal links). Both sites have an extensive Links page with mostly high page-ranked, related listings.

But both sites have still not been page ranked by Google. Since there is no page rank at all for either site, some sites won't link to my sites until they do have some PR, AND I can't get a good position in the search engines although I have really done all the work necesssary to get them both good listings.

So my question is this... first, how long does it take to get the "precious" Google PR and second, is there ANYTHING I can do to speed up the process? Like say a paid Overture acct or something like that?

One of my clients is totally willing to spend money to get her site noticed quicker. The other client probably is not. (She is disappointed I think because her paid ebook has not sold a single copy yet. I told her that nothing is going to happen overnight and that until we get a PR and get other sites to list her site and get her properly positioned, nothing will happen. Personally, I think she would be better off having it as a free ebook to attract traffic to her site, but she is set on a paid book.)

So does anyone out there have any suggestions? I am totally open to paid solutions or free solutions. I don't know if it will make a difference or not, but here are the URLs for both sites, in case that helps anyone. xxxhttp://www.amysticalcreation.com and xxxhttp://www.nlpublications.com/mobile_notary/

Thank you all in advance. I hope to hear from someone out there!

Teri

Wow... that was quick!
Actually I think I may have posted this thread twice because the first time, my browser crashed when I clicked send and I didn't think it went through. Can I delete it somehow?

Well, thank you so much for your responses. As far as the response to tmprod, I couldn't agree with you more about sales. On top of what I've already listed, my client should have had the copy professionally done. But you-know-who did it instead. I told her that I'm a designer, not a writer, but that just didn't happen.

So, I did the best I could and I'm still rewriting it and I know the copy and headline is not nearly attractive enough. I loved all of your ideas about making the "sell". And i couldn't agree more. I want to tell users exactly HOW this will beneift them, but I don't have the information to add that stuff. I can't just make it up out of thin air. I keep putting myself in the position of someone who might be interested in buying this book and starting a new home-based biz, but still, I know the copy is weak.

Now, I do really like the idea of giving away a chapter for free. That is something I didn't think of, and now that is something we could "give away".

I've suggested an Overture acct. I've suggested giving free related stuff away. I've suggested making the book free instead to attract attention to her main site for Great Lakes Notary. She just started a new paid membership program there and I think the book could have been used as an incentive for the membership program.

In addition, I think she's charging too much for the book. Although at the same time, this woman has a terrific reputation in the biz and I beleive this book is very valuable to those who are interested in a possible new home-based biz opportunity.

Another option would have been that since she has her own publishing company, to publish other people's works and make a profit off those books, but so far, she doesn't want to do that.

Really, there's more... but it's all just the same thing. A designer wearing far too many hats and the result, in my opinion, is that the "design" of the site I think looks good. But the other aspects, the copy writing, the way the thing is set up to sell, etc. is just not happening. I think the book has alot of potential but changes need to be made.

So while I do realize that Google PR isn't the end-all, if we could just get SOME traffic to the site, that would be helpful. As it is she doesn't get but 5 hits a day because she's not listed anywhere, even though I have submitted the site everywhere possible. Now a free ebook I could have listed it literally a million places, but a paid ebook is different.

Anyways, I've gone on and on about this. I want the book to do well and this client is one of my better clients.

Really, what I should do, and I realize it after writing all this out to you guys, is talk to her about it. And really make her see that the way this book is set up is not working for us. We need to look at different options altogether.

Thank you somuch for listening. I really appreciate the suggestions... I hope everyone is having a great weekend!
Teri

No problem. Another consideration os to have a section of the site devoted to each chapter topic....remember the more pages you have the better your chances are to be found once crawled- in addition to a ongoing successful linking campaign.

If you need help with editing the book- or professional copywriting I employ a handfull of copywriters. Remember looking professional, reading professional makes you appear professional.

-Dwight
Trademark Productions Inc.

If she has another site in the same theme, she might want to have the link on her site. Her current site could be seen as an authority site within the same theme.


He's right, so link to and get some themed sites to link to you.

Also, her site is not SEO'd. So even with links, PR, and blab blab blab, she probably wouldn't sell many books. She is better off having affiliates sell her products. It's better not to be a Jack of all trades and an expert at nothing.

no one has seen a PR change since the last update on June 22. So any new site created after that will have PR0. The bad news is that my experience is it can take 2 PR updates to get PR. Thus new sites from July might get passed on the next PR update (whenever that happens) and have to wait for the PR update after that!

Toolbar PR doesn't matter for SERPs, but I can understand why clients want it, and explaining that it doesn't matter doesn't matter to them.

There is no way to get toolbar PR, paid or otherwise, except to wait for the google gods to have an update.

(actually, I did see one humerous post where someone made a gif file of a google toolbar with PR10, and then placed the gif at the top of their homepage. if your client isn't too quick, you could try that...)

Is this honestly true "toolbar PR doesn't matter for serps" My PR0 is nowhere in the serps for any of my keywords. In fact, when I type in some particular keywords, sites that link to me and have my keyword in by virtue of the link to me on my anchor text appear.


Could this mean I have been banned, but if so would I still be seeing links and allinurl stats. If so, how do I check to see if Google hates me or not? One things for sure in the 10 weeks since site inception, i've grown to hate Google.

Right now, many are reporting that the graphic bars in the Google Directory are giving useful PR indications where the Toolbar isn't. But that's only of use if your site is listed in the Directory.

The Google Directory is simply the dmoz "Open Directory" sorted in order (per page) by PR; but (nothing is ever easy) Google does not refresh from dmoz with any great frequency, plus it can take a while ("a while", har har) to get listed in dmoz, if, in fact, they elect to list you at all.

But the longest journey begins with a single step, so if you haven't submitted to dmoz.org, do so now.

--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
OmniKnow.com and
SEO Tools, Toys, and Packages

Hi everyone again! Wow! I am so impressed with the response I got. Just incredible. I thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and suggestions and opinions!

Anyways, I just thought I'd update you all on my personal situation with my ebook client. Yesterday, after putting my problems all down on the web (here at this site), I realized that I really needed to speak with my client and rework what we've done. So, we have a meeting set up for tomorrow morning. I am really excited and I'm armed with new ideas on how to go about marketing this book and some of the problems we're having with it, thanks to all of you!

I think I may have mentioned that she is one of my best clients.

And, Dwight, I will keep that in mind about a pro copywriter as I don't know one myself. I'll let you know if I can get you (or someone you know) some extra work!

Thanks again for everything!
Teri

P.S. Someone mentioned that the site was not optimized?? (And I'm not sure who the newbie you're referring to is.) Hmmm.... I have a pretty good record at getting my clients within google's first couple pages. I'd be interested to know what other optimization techniques you have in mind.

Hmmm


You might want to consider the affiliate route and let the SEO's do the optimizing.

No!! What are you saying.

Please don't depress me further. Just tell me you're joking - surely Google wouldn't be so cruel as to miss a few months and still make us wait for 2 updates

we added some new pages to our site in early May, and they were quickly cached by google. after the May 31 PR update, they were still PR0, they got PR after the June 22 update.

these were new pages, not sites.

my assumption is that if you get into the google system only a few weeks before the PR update, you can be skipped... but then, who really knows, and this has been a long dry spell.

I just wouldn't bet the farm on a new site from July getting PR on the next update, but I hope they do.