I need some help   One of my best friends from DeBary Florida, Joan Dibernardo has entered the Food Network " The Great Food Truck Race" ............. and wants me to go with her if she wins. This is the problem We need votes to win and if you could take a moment of your time to vote for The sub base mobile mobile kitchen I would greatly appreciate it. We need all the votes we can get. You can vote ten times a day or submit all you votes at once.  You can vote each day until September 10th 2010. Here is more information. I apologize for posting a non-related topic and feel free to delete it once you vote LOL.

http://subbasemobilekitchen.webs.com/

To vote

http://foodtrucks.teamdigital.com/?vty=foodtrucks

Truck name: The sub base mobile kitchen
Debary Florida

Thank You
Billy D.

I would also like to add....... I helped her with her website using http://webs.com My problem now is getting it to show up in the search engines. Does anyone have any suggestions. the name is so lo.....................ng. I know marketing is one of our topics I thought this would be a good project.

Billy D.

Voted for today, bookmarked so that I can go back. Best of luck!

Voted for today, bookmarked so that I can go back. Best of luck!

Thanks Chris!

Voted!

As for the marketing thing, check out the recent threads on SEO. However, I think the main problem is the name. Not the length, but the actual words. It sounds very dull, and more to the point, just from the name, I can't tell what it actually is or does. It sounds like a construction company! "Mobile restaurant" is a better name than "sub base mobile kitchen". Why not just make it "mobile kitchen"? Sub base seems like it's redundant. (I am aware this may be her business name, but that doesn't mean you can't fudge the site name somehow)

I'd change the meta data too. You want meta keywords which are both specific and generic. You don't include the word "restaraunt", but do include BLT. Is anyone actually going to do keyword searches for BLT versus keyword searches on "restaurant" (or sub for that matter). I think Alexa has a web tool where you can compare trending terms against each other and see what ones are attracting more searches.

Additionally, the description is too blah. It's written for people, rather than for robots. All you need to do is slightly reword your keywords into a sentence.

I'd also recommend using this tool: http://www.websitegrader.com. I use it every few months or so to see how my site is doing. You can input competing websites and compare how your traffic is doing compared to theirs, and improve certain things as necessary.

I'd also add some images of yummy food. It's not just about getting hits, but about keeping people on the site. A tiny pic of the truck in the top corner (hidden by a plant no less) wouldn't inspire me to order. (Or maybe it's cause I just had lunch!   )

That's all I can add, other than to again recommend pulling out old threads.

Thanks Na............... You brought up some good ideas. I'm so new to this got lots to learn. Might as well learn from the best I say. Thank You for voting

BD

Haha, best... yeah right! I'm just like you, learning as I go.

I've found that http://www.smashingmagazine.com is an excellent resource too. They've got a lot of really good articles there about web design, and especially on the ways in which people use websites. It's helped me clarify a lot of stuff that I've been doing wrong lately. I recommend especially:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/13/7-more-useful-tips-to-help-your-site-convert/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/06/design-to-sell-12-tips-to-help-your-website-convert/

Both of which discuss ways in which to design in order to help convert clicks into sales.

I just placed my votes!

Thanks Na and LJ