[AJ]

I would say 80% comes from the website. Last week we had 7 quotes in 5 days totaling 19k per year. Winning them is a different story though.

[bobby p]

via website  raked in jobs that id never have got by usual means.  a big office place and a german lot who sell airbags from a farmhouse and pretend they are in germany . 

  only thing i cant seem to get found in a search of  other towns i work in. although ive added these towns names in my website blurb, its only if you search my hometown do you find me

[cleaner-exteriors]

Your site wont come up until you first submit it to google

http://www.google.co.uk/addurl/?continue=/addurl

then it takes a few weeks for them to keep coming back and crawling it. Have you got a site map? How often are you planning on submitting this to google  you wont get google to acknowledge your site overnight by any stretch of the imagination, sorry mate.
[/quote]

Hi, there is a quicker way to get your site acknowledged by Google, after indexing to the major search engines, add your sites details to social bookmarking sites, by doing this you will find your indexed much quicker and you are also getting some nice backlinks to your sites.
Use your main keywords in the descriptions and the tags.
You can also ping the bookmark url's for an even quicker result, below is a list of social bookmark sites i like to use.

http://www.jumptags.com/
http://digg.com/
http://url.org
http://myprops.org/
http://stumbleupon.com/
http://faves.com/home
http://www.reddit.com/
http://blinklist.com/
http://www.mister-wong.com/
http://spotback.com/
http://www.oneview.com/
http://www.a1-webmarks.com/
http://bookmarks.yahoo.com/
http://www.bibsonomy.org/
http://oyax.com/
http://connotea.org/
http://www.delicious.com/
http://clipmarks.com/
https://www.mixx.com/

Ok like a lot of seo tasks it is boring but well worth the effort 

Also i noticed some comments about some sites ranking well with out backlinks, this tends to be down to a good domain choice + low competition... If the competition is difficult a nice way to rank is to build a blog attached to your site, use longtailed keywords, for example "looking for a window cleaner in London". Its amazing how much traffic you can pick up in this way, plus by having a blog and updating the content regularly Google will see your site as more of an authority than a three page site and that will give you a ranking boost.
Bear in mind though it all takes time.

Matt

[Tom Kelly]

Hi, there is a quicker way to get your site acknowledged by Google, after indexing to the major search engines, add your sites details to social bookmarking sites, by doing this you will find your indexed much quicker and you are also getting some nice backlinks to your sites.
Use your main keywords in the descriptions and the tags.
You can also ping the bookmark url's for an even quicker result, below is a list of social bookmark sites i like to use.

http://www.jumptags.com/
http://digg.com/
http://url.org
http://myprops.org/
http://stumbleupon.com/
http://faves.com/home
http://www.reddit.com/
http://blinklist.com/
http://www.mister-wong.com/
http://spotback.com/
http://www.oneview.com/
http://www.a1-webmarks.com/
http://bookmarks.yahoo.com/
http://www.bibsonomy.org/
http://oyax.com/
http://connotea.org/
http://www.delicious.com/
http://clipmarks.com/
https://www.mixx.com/

Ok like a lot of seo tasks it is boring but well worth the effort  

Also i noticed some comments about some sites ranking well with out backlinks, this tends to be down to a good domain choice + low competition... If the competition is difficult a nice way to rank is to build a blog attached to your site, use longtailed keywords, for example "looking for a window cleaner in London". Its amazing how much traffic you can pick up in this way, plus by having a blog and updating the content regularly Google will see your site as more of an authority than a three page site and that will give you a ranking boost.
Bear in mind though it all takes time.

Matt

Want to be careful not to gain too many links in a short space of time though, as this can work against you.

Goes without saying really but... DO NOT BUY LINKS!

GoCompare got caught recently buying links to their site, and they went from #1 in Google, to bottom of the third page overnight!

Healthy, Relevant, Organic links!

[H S and Son]

Hi, there is a quicker way to get your site acknowledged by Google

The quickest way to get your site acknowledged by Google is to submit it to Google, think about it  

Dont submit it and you dont get acknowledged.

[cleaner-exteriors]

Hi, there is a quicker way to get your site acknowledged by Google

The quickest way to get your site acknowledged by Google is to submit it to Google, think about it  

Dont submit it and you dont get acknowledged.

errm re-read the post Matt submitting and indexing are the same thing, and i said index to the major search engines which includes Google :
By bookmarking your speeding up the process due to the fact the bookmarking sites in the list are crawled all the time due to the popularity and content of those sites.
It is a simple Seo method to speed up the time it takes Google to find your site and very effective.

[cleaner-exteriors]

Tom

Yep you don't want to many links to quickly but for a new site on a new domain 20-30 links per day is good enough and Google will see that as natural link building

[H S and Son]

So your saying by bookmarking your site it gets indexed quicker. Quicker than what?

[Erithwc]

this topic has gone way off subject groundhog whats you business trading name is their a web address availabale for your business name

[cleaner-exteriors]

quicker than submitting/indexing and then waiting for Google's bots to find your site, bookmarking just speeds up the process, if you just submitted your url to Google it can take a few weeks before you site is crawled, using bookmarking your site can be found and crawled quickly sometimes on the same day.

[Matt Gibson]

this topic has gone way off subject groundhog whats you business trading name is their a web address availabale for your business name

Right,

If you can prove with some form of evidence, that you have been trading under a certain name for a period of time (bank statements in the trading name, Leaflets, Invoices with trading name on them etc etc..) then you can actually get this other geezer using your name to stop. You can take it through the proper channels too. I actually looked into this when i started up. Basically, you CAN get this guy to stop trading under the name, IF you can prove you were using it first. Im not so sure in regards to the difference you mentioned with the names, but because its such a close match, i think you have a good argument. Its worth a try anyway mate.

Good luck,

Matt

[H S and Son]

quicker than submitting/indexing and then waiting for Google's bots to find your site, bookmarking just speeds up the process, if you just submitted your url to Google it can take a few weeks before you site is crawled, using bookmarking your site can be found and crawled quickly sometimes on the same day.

Google doesn't have to find you if you submit your site, you've told google where it is before it finds a link to you.

[Erithwc]

Just an idea but if the guy is trading under a similar name can't you do the same thing to him set up a website and in the meta tags use keywords that are revalant to his business.

plus i would do a leaflet up telling all your customers about the new website and put the web address on your motor

but i might be wrong about the meta tag part what his business name and whats yours are they different or not  

[cleaner-exteriors]

Groundhog have you asked for any proffesional advice regaring the name?
You could try business link, they may be able to help http://businesslink.gov.uk

If that fails build a better site and outrank him, for local business sites its pretty easy to do.



Matt your correct you have told Google where your link is, but as i explained above it can still take along time for Google to reach and crawl your site,  http://www.webmaster-forums.net/search-engine-challenges/how-can-i-get-site-google-index-fast

[H S and Son]

Matt your correct you have told Google where your link is, but as i explained above it can still take along time for Google to reach and crawl your site,  http://www.webmaster-forums.net/search-engine-challenges/how-can-i-get-site-google-index-fast

Dont mean to labout a point, but http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sites/thread?tid=6a49e72d328e7a7f&hl=en


Perhaps there really is more than one way to skin a cat 

[cleaner-exteriors]

Ok last post from me on this, thing is Matt i don't disagree with you on submitting i just personally know i can get indexed a lot quicker with bookmarking rather than waiting for Google to actually process the submission as happened in this link http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sites/thread?tid=00751c419c63ff18&hl=en
Its a common practice in Seo and the backlinks are high PR and great for ranking.

Anyway all the best been an intresting discussion.

Matt

[H S and Son]

It is interesting.

My point though is that Google has to find you. It can find you by you directly submitting your URL and then Google goes off and crawls your site.

Or you can use a bookmarking site and wait for Google to find your link on it (and you have no guarantee as to how long that will be) and then it goes off and finds your site, crawls it, indexes it and we are at the same point we were at when Google crawled your site after you submitted your site directly to it.

Whats the difference, the only difference is the method of how Google becomes aware of your site? Assuming all other things being equal.

Just I prefer to have as much control over how my site is indexed and prefer not to leave it up to those who have no good reason to be concerned with it, and when I say that I mean bookmarking sites.

[Tom Kelly]

Once you have Google crawling your site, all you need to do is change about 10% of the text on your page.

This seems to be the magic number when it comes to Google acknowledging that you have put something new and fresh on.

Don't spend TOO much time on your meta tags, as there is NO proof that Google actually uses this, but this does not mean don't do it. As there is still no proof it doesn't

Focus on your <title> <h1> <h2> /<strong> and /

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY YOUR CONTENT!

[groundhog]

Well things are improving and I can now find my site on a google search for a window cleaner in my town!   I usually appear about half way down the page, below my copycat competitor but I also appear in the google ads at the side and sometimes on the top above the other results, but if anyone clicks this it costs me money! but worth it if I get a good customer out of it!!

[Tom Kelly]

Well things are improving and I can now find my site on a google search for a window cleaner in my town!   I usually appear about half way down the page, below my copycat competitor but I also appear in the google ads at the side and sometimes on the top above the other results, but if anyone clicks this it costs me money! but worth it if I get a good customer out of it!!

Good to hear mate!

Keep me updated