Site is not listed in web search

[markf26988182]

[I know this isn't an SEO forum...but I thought someone here may have some insight]:

I know our site has been active long enough for various search engine bots to discover it & log it, so I'm wondering why it's essentially blind on the www?  It's a site specific to a local area of narcotics anonymous, so it's really important for people to be able to find it, very quickly, with just a routine web search.

Is it a question of keywords (& do we still use that sort of thing in design)?

Is it a case of uploading a meta file to each search engine?

could use some help...the site is here: www.burlingtoncountyna.org

thanx,

dox

[Jon Fritz]

How long exactly has the current site been up?

What search terms are you trying to find it with and on which search engines?

Keywords are important throughout your html text. If you have certain terms that you want people to find you with, you need to use them often and in meaningful ways throughout your site.

The keywords meta tag hasn't been used by any reputable search engine in many, many years. They don't do anything for your site. Submitting a site map to Google using their webmaster tools could get your site indexed a little quicker, but that's about it.

It really is all about the content of the site these days. Having very little, or unfocused content will cause problems when you want to be found with certain words or phrases.

[pziecina]

To add to Jons reply.

If you have had the problem you described in this thread since the site going live -

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2639702

Then all search engines would have seen on your site is the menu. This is because search engines now look at sites from a mobile device perspective first. If they do not see any content, (for whatever reason) then they will give the site a very low ranking.

[Jon Fritz]

I'll be blunt, don't take this as mean, I'm just not going to tiptoe around the issue here...

The bulk of your site is still basically empty to a search crawler. The Events page in particular, being large info-heavy graphics, has almost nothing for them to latch onto (they can't read images).

You need a lot more html text content if you plan to show up in searches against all of the other NA chapters across the state and country that have been online longer, with more info. If "Burlington County" is an important search criteria to you, it needs to show up a lot more throughout your site so it becomes important/relevant to the search crawlers. Right now, they're basically seeing it mentioned pretty much once per page.

"Narcotics Anonymous" shows up twice on your home page and that appears to be it for the entire site. That's just not an important phrase to you, as far as the search crawlers understand.

You currently have what amounts to a single page website to search crawlers.

Everything in your menu from Policy to Contact is basically a mailto link page (not a good plan for contact pages) with no real information. Because the site only mentions who you are and what you do essentially one time (the home page), it's just not going to be considered very relevant for search results, against everything else that has been out there longer with more.

There are no tricks to employ to fix it. You just need more indexable, relevant information throughout your site. Once that gets added, and is continually updated, you'll notice upward movement in the search results.

[Paul-M]

It really depends on what keywords you are expecting to rank for. Everything is relative in SEO. The more competitive areas and keywords you target, the more work you need to put into it and good SEO especially on a new website with a new domain takes time.

As a starting point get some external links pointing to your website but MAKE SURE they are from good quality/relevant websites.

I think you might want to look at your title tag on the homepage in relation to keywords you are looking to rank for, currently its:

<title>Burlington County Area of NA / Home page</title>

Look at integrating a phase or some keywords you want to rank for in the title tag and keep it to a max of 55 charaacters as a rule.

Add relevant keywords to your on-page title in H1 tag also:

<h1 class="display-3">Burlington County Area of NA</h1>

You do NOT have a meta description on the homepage - you need one.

I would read up on SEO and on-page structure - there are also plenty of free online checkers that you will give you some pointers as to where you may need to make some changes.

There are also a lot of pitfalls and DO NOTS - duplicate content, bad site structure, canonical issues, its wide-ranging ...

SEO covers a wide area of factors. - get all your pages checked and get the basics covered.

[Nancy OShea]

You're competing with 1.6 billion websites worldwide.   Everyone wants to be on page #1 SERP.   New sites usually have to pay for keyword ads for the first 6-12 months or at least until the search engines notice you.

https://ads.google.com/

SEO is an ongoing process.  It's not something you do once and forget it.  You must keep working it to get to the top and then keep working it to stay on top.   Keep your site content fresh, relevant and heavy in keyword-rich terms.   Eventually, your efforts will pay off.

[markf26988182]

Thanx all...

1) Looked at the source code for all the other areas of NA websites (in close proximity...in NJ & PA)...& only *one* had a [meta name="description"] & a [meta name="keywords"] in the head.  It's a basic html 4 type, non-fluid site (& doesn't work so swell on a cell phone)...but the description & keywords were great.  I plan to incorporate that into ours; & I'm assuming it can be placed in the head, right after [meta name="viewport" content='yada yada yada"], right?

[& incidentally...if you do a basic search using the exact words of that site's title...they don't even come up in the search!.  So, I guess Nancy's right (thanx Nancy)]

[incidentally 2...during that search...*our* site actually came up in the rankings...I think #4 or 5 on the page...first time I've seen it in any search.  & the language that the search engine used as a description was the first text that currently is included in the page code...the center column (What is the NA program...)] (So, I guess Jon & Paul are right...thanx)

2) Under <title>, I changed NA to the full words (Narcotics Anonymous)...that should help.  (& I fixed the titles in all sub-pages, as well).

3) Someone suggested including an XML Site Map...that should help, right?

4) Not sure how to add keywords to the <h1 class>

thanx again (everybody),

dox

[Paul-M]

meta keywords is obselete so you don't really need it

meta description : there is some debate as to whether its still has any SEO weight (possibly a small signal) - but what it definately does do is help you control how your listing appears in search results - with a good meta description you can draw the users click and improve your CTR (click through rate) - Caveat: Google may not always use use meta description.

[Paul-M]

SItemaps are often misunderstood - they tell Google a list of your pages - but they have zero impact on how high your pages appear in the search results.

Excellent site structure and naviagtion are worth a lot more than a sitemap.

Add good quality unique content on a regular basis with a blog or news secrion - never copy content from other websites, original and unique content is worth its weight in gold these days, so take your time when writing and make sure you content is top quality and useful.

[sueb558855]

I had a look at your site and a few things jumped out:

• the menus are not consistent (that is, the menu is slightly different depending on your location in the site).
• Your event is one honking big image - it's great to have a 'hero' image etc, but all that text should be...text. That's stuff that the bots aren't reading. Also, on a mobile is ew.
• Most of your menu items are placeholders, effectively - there's not much meat there. The mixed case items could really be on one page.
• It's not immediately apparent what state (or even country) your group represents. Initially I thought NA was a state abbrev in the US. Perhaps some location info would help here. So, if I google NA in New Jersey (I figured it out eventually) that might pick you up (it didn't, but the main body has your back!). As it is, it's not easy for someone to find you. If I search for NA Burlington, my first hit Burlington Ontario. So, location, location, location.

I think your biggest issue is lack of clear location/identity. You need relevant information/content on every page and people need to know who and where you are.

Good luck with it all - I'm sure you'll get it happening.

[BenPleysier]

[markf26988182]

Thanx again...one more quick question:

I added meta name="description' & meta name="keywords" snippets to my head...do I have to close those off with />...or can I just use > ?

dox

(& thanx Ben...must have been catalogged recently, but very good news)

[BenPleysier]

Keywords have no effect due to misuse in the past. In HTML5 no need for the back slash.

[Paul-M]

I added meta name="description' & meta name="keywords" snippets to my head...do I have to close those off with />...or can I just use > ?

dox

(& thanx Ben...must have been catalogged recently, but very good news)

I checked you homepage and your meta description is way to long (450+ characters) you need to aim for a max of 155 characters as a rule, although its not set in stone, anything over 155-160 characters will get truncated on larger screens and on mobile screens it will get truncated to around 120 characters ....