SEO 2020 FORUM

[lloydsc]

Good afternoon everyone - this is my first post so be gentle.

I will keep a detailed record of my progress from complete novice (now) to where ever it takes me. Please provide constructive feedback.

In searching for keywords does it matter if we by a domain with -'s in them.

For example:

If we find a good keyword search (in terms of current hits) for:

complete novices

Would a domain name www.complete-novice.com (without the s and with a dash) be appropriate. Also would www.novices-complete.com be appropriate (word order).

Please feel free to make suggestions and constructive criticisms along the way and I'll update this journal with my learning experiences so that someone hopefully will learn from them.

Thanks
Steve

[lloydsc]

For information purposes I'm using:

Hostgator - hosting
namecheap - domain name

Dreamweaver 8 - website design software

Regards
Steve

[Ahri22]

Hi Steve,

I personally haven't used dashes in any of my domain names, but I've heard that it's okay to use ONE dash only. Apparently Google looks down on too many dashes in a domain name. Personally, I try to avoid them if possible

I also use Dreamweaver 8 and Hostgator, but like to get my domains from iPowerweb (as they're the cheapest .coms I can find!)

Cheers
Fiona

[lloydsc]

Thanks Fiona

Spent 2 hours last night learning Dreamweaver.

It became quickly apparent that it's so important to have table design done BEFORE sitting down to do anything!!

I'm not one for re-inventing the wheel so I'll do some research and model (NLP talk for copy) the layout of an existing site tonight.

Regards
Steve

[Ahri22]

Yeah, copying other sites can make it easier to create your own!

My latest challenge has been creating a tableless design using CSS... Tables are far easier, but apparently CSS is much more SEO friendly as it makes the size of your pages smaller, and you get less html code clogging up your pages.

Cheers
Fiona

[lloydsc]

Hi Fiona

Creating a design WITH tables is difficult enough.

One thing I'm have problems with is a design for the banner - if I copy a picture from the internet (a musical band) the picture looks rubbish.

If it is easier to use someone elses are templates that are freely available?

Is there a library I can get pictures from?

Will all the pages be the same?

Sorry for the niaive questions - once I start understanding the process there will be less and less of them as I will work things out for myself.

Regards
Steve

[gavrem]

Steve and everyone else,

There is a very useful website for FREE Open Source Web templates. I use the templates found there for almost every site I make. Very easy to modify to suit your needs and currently over 1600 Completetly FREE templates to choose from. Most are CSS tableless designs (Fiona )

The site is Open Source Web Design and should be bookmarked in every webmasters Favorites if you ask me.

Why struggle creating your own when there are thousands of examples for you to just upload and modify.

Michael

[lloydsc]

Nice one Fiona

Vert grateful
Steve

[lloydsc]

Hi Fiona

I can't workout how to download a template into Dreamwaever 8.

Any ideas please?

Thanks
Steve

[lloydsc]

Can anyone recommend an RSS aggregator that works with dreamweaver please.

Thanks
Steve