I'll give you short answers for all your questions, since you have several...
=)

1. Sites to submit your pages to...
This one is never a set answer. It really depends on your pages. Since they are on Mahalo, there is no need to submit them to any of the search engines, because the spiders will find them if they are linked... yours are. I'll discuss this more a little later... but the ones you linked to here in this question should be found.
a. You can use one of your links as your website when you comment on blogs... for instance, if you are commenting on a gardening blog, and they allow links, you can use Amazon Home Coupons as your website, and it will be an incoming link. (Not all blogs allow links, and some are useless even if they do allow them... more on that another time... for now... go ahead and use it if they allow it. But don't go crazy! )
=)
b. If you go to gardening forums on a regular basis that should help too... just place the link in your signature file for any that allow links. Be sure to check the policy. Some only allow one or two.
c. Start your own blog. Blogger is free and so is Posterous. Then you can go on and on about gardening and link to your coupon page whenever appropriate.
d. When something noteable is added to your page... twitter it! digg it! etc, etc, etc... let the world know. Use a sensational headline to get their attention and get them to click. Make sure to digg, stumble, etc. other sites too so they don't start ignoring your mahalo.com links. Don't submit Mahalo more than every 4th or 5th link... as a general rule. =)

2. Ad revenue of the page depends on a few things. First, you have to have visitors. (I think the visits counter is not working right now, though, because I personally am earning revenue while it says no one is coming to the page. XD)
a. Revenue is exclusively through Adsense. That means that you have to be displaying ads on the page... and advertisers have to be buying ad space that matches your page. Some ads match better than others, and frankly, some cost more than others. I've had clicks that earned me 1 cent, and I've had a single click that earned me several dollars.
b. You have to have content not only on the page, but near the ads. It won't help you to have a bunch of ad blocks on the page with no real content around them. Real content consists of things like text boxes with content in them, Google search modules, News modules, Blog modules... basically anything you can add to the page that includes text with the keywords you are targeting. Even if you add a video to the page you should add a description and a title --both with keywords in them.

I think every page should have a video if you can find one... if not - find an awesome picture. Liven up your pages! =)

Sometimes finding a video can be challenging... for example: your Amazon Home Coupons page. Search for Amazon Home on You Tube and you get nothing useful. Amazon.com brings up great videos for the whole website, but not for Home items... but type in gardening Amazon and you get a kinda funny video of a woman who is excited about the LADYBUGS she bought from Amazon.com...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4qQdYVDaW4

...and that is useful to you... creates interest. keeps them on the page. Make sure you use keywords in the title and description and position it on the top right of the page with an ad block directly under it, if you can. Having ads next to videos is a great way to get them to click! =)

Your Verizon Broadband Coupons page does have a video... nice. I'd move it above the ads so it is the first thing that will draw their eyes.

3. For Serena Williams, (nice! image and video both on page!) I'd play with the sections a bit. I think the timeline is more important than twitter or MA in this case... so I'd move it up. The second ad block on the right should be between two sections with text instead of above a videos section. Hard to do, sometimes, as you can't directly move an ad block.

This page is getting traffic. I'd keep adding information to both sides of the page. Content and incoming links are what will get you higher in Google. Age of page plays a part as well... it can rise over time.

Celebrity pages often do not do as well for revenue no matter what you do for them. The ads just are not as lucrative for you. So you need a lot more traffic to get more out of the adsense.

Now... for all three pages... I recommend a couple of things. First... continual changes over time. All the search engines like active pages. Active is not 20 changes in one day then nothing for months. Active is a few changes, then wait a few days or a couple of weeks (depending on the page and how active it is) then a few more changes. Add something, move something.

They could all be placed in more categories. Every coupon page should be in all three coupon/deal related categories. You'll find the other two under shopping... which is another category that could be added. I put them in all relevant categories.

And you can get incoming links from across Mahalo as well as trying for blogs. That will show the SE's that this is a knowledge hub for whatever subject it is.

Ask the page managers that you are linking to to link back to your page. It will help both of you. I have only ever had one person turn me down because he didn't think the page was relevant. (It was. =D)

For instance.. You could ask @ssmacd to link to you from her Verizon Coupons page... and you link back. You couldn't get more related than that. =)

4. I plan to have one of these threads a week for now. =)

Really great detailed Answer. If there is any AotD contest, I would be the one nominating this one (unless they neglect it as it is only a comment). Too bad they kept it aside for sometime ... :(

Accept my Tip of 2M$ for this insightful answer. Hope you don't mind this little amount.

=)

Thanks. The tip is appreciated. It was not necessary, though. =)

I hope that some of the information I'm giving all of you helps.

Hi @kohuether,

I've taken a look at your pages.

Out of 8 pages managed, two are already in Google. That is not bad, since none of them seem to have been managed longer than two weeks. I don't know if they were around longer than that, but I'm thinking you started those pages, with the possible exception of Spices.

Just looking at your pages I noticed a couple of things. First is the lack of a lot of inlinking. I know a lot is said about getting incoming links to your page, and that is important, but the search engines, especially Google, look at who you are linking TO as well. And even links within the same site, like Mahalo are important.

There are a couple of reasons for that, but they boil down to the fact that any authoritative site is going to link to other resources where people can get more information. And the more information that a single site has across multiple pages, the more of an authority it is seen to be.

This is one reason that Mahalo is seen as a great resource for coupons. The coupon pages interlink nicely and we have a lot of them. =)

Inlinks mean all those little search engine bots can find other Mahalo pages easier too. So that's my next point. Get some inlinks from other Mahalo pages.

There are two easy ways to do this: do it yourself and ask others.

1. Do it yourself. If you have related pages, link them together. And make use of the Categories function. Add your page to every related category. Take a couple of minutes and expand some of those categories to see what else is there. some gems are hiding a level or two down... and not always where you would think they would be.

2. Ask others. Do a search on Google for "keyword site:mahalo.com" and see what pages are already indexed. Google will be revisiting those pages to check for changes. Ask the page manager for any related page if they will add a link to your page. And do the same for them. It will give more weight to both your pages and you might get picked up a little faster.

Yes, that's definitely something I haven't done is build links to my pages both within Mahalo and outside of it. I didn't even think of building the links myself on my Mahalo pages! I appreciate your thoughtful and helpful response.

anytime. let us know how it works out for you. =)

Hi @Marina7aqua,

Finding the blogs is easy when you know how to do it. =) Yes, you *could* just search for those blogs, but that won't tell you whether they allow the search engine to follow links from their blog or not. There are a couple of easy ways to find them.

First, you can just do a search for: blogs without "no follow"
That should bring up a page of websites that have done the work for you. Realize that some of the lists are out of date, but no list will ever be perfect, as blog owners can turn that on and off at a whim.

Second, you can do a search on a site that has a custom Google search set up, like this one (Click here). Just typing in "swinwear" brings up 10 blogs. I'd also search for other related terms like "swimsuit" "fashion" "clothing", etc. Basically, any keyword that you would think there would be a relevant blog for. Bookmark all those blogs when you find them, so you can find them again when you need them. =)

You can also use software that will find those blogs for you. Some of it is expensive, some not... but you can start for free by doing it as I've described above.

Note: You want to make sure your blog comments are relevant and add something to the discussion. Ideally, your link will be allowed in the background in a field when you register or leave the comment when unregistered. Don't just make a comment like, "Hey, there's a really great page over here that tells you how to pick the right swimsuit for your body type! The blog owners that are actively promoting their blogs are watching comments and yours will never see the light of day... and could possibly get not only your page, but all of Mahalo banned from that blog. So, we don't want to spam. =)

Your page actually looks pretty nice. I think because of the subject matter it could use images of the different body types... maybe drawings if you can find them. I'd avoid any that show a face with the body, as that might be seen as in bad taste. You can add those as featured objects, add a description, then even add a comment under the image.

I think I'd add a videos section to the bottom left of the page. It is a block that looks just like the images section, but with videos instead. You can find it under the "Links" drop down box.

And there is a lot that you can do to advertise. But one little trick I'll share with you concerns those comments you made on the blogs... after you leave a comment, go ahead and digg or stumble or (insert social bookmarking site here) the permalink for the blog post you commented on... or the comment thread if it is a different page. Not only will that give you a bookmark to a site other than Mahalo so you aren't seen as spamming digg or the others by just digging Mahalo links, but it will give that page a little boost, which boosts the power of the incoming link you created... it all trickles down. =)

So basically... advertise the pages that are linking to you. That is something that can really help in the long run.

you could definitely get links to the site but having a all flash web design is in fact a huge no no... I did this when i first started out myself and later ended up paying for it.. I would suggest doing a half and half deal if your going to use flash, remember most can be accomplished without it... Usually people will use flash as a banner or maybe some type of deal they have going but to make the site all flash does not allow the search engines to crawl your pages as they cannot read flash content, at least that is what they have been telling me for several years now. See if there is any content that can be made into php or html and run with it... Check out my site www.shoptimesaver.com if you need some great SEO ideas, as I have worked really hard on my SEO strategy here and it took me several years to learn.

I hope everything works out for your friend and her business succeeds. If you need any more help please dont hesitate to ask.

Thanks, Mike !

Or one could have a Flash and non-Flash version.

That is a defininate possibility @chriswingate - I would advice to keep the home page to the html version first then have a flash version link somewhere in that page.

Mike !

That site looks amazing! I absolutely love the look of Flash.

No, the spiders cannot see Flash-- or JavaScript-- or Frames... so you need to do something else if you want the spiders to see them. Here is an example of what the spiders see on that home page:

Spidered Text :
Images Tulsa's Baby & child photographer Flash player 6 is required to view this site:Download Flash 6 Player
Spidered Links :
http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer/
Meta Keywords :
No meta keywords found.
Meta Description :
No meta description found.

That's it--no content at all. The inherent problem with having Flash is the lack of content. Most of you have heard that "Content is King" when it comes to SERP's. This is never more true than when dealing with the home page.

You need to have additional information on the page for the spiders, and even for the visitors. Some have text only browsers... some University departments and blind people rely on them. Now, a blind person may or may not be looking for photos... but you never know. Just because they cannot see them does not mean they are not looking for a great source.

Adding meta tag content will only go so far, but it should be done. Title, Description, Keywords, at the very least. And I'd add at least a couple of well written paragraphs under the Flash section. Make sure to pepper the text with your main keywords.

Having a Flash and non-Flash version is one solution, but it has to be done correctly to get the search engines to default to the Flash version. And it is probably outside of your friend's experience, so it would need to be done by a professional, which means cost. Adding the text to the bottom of the page is much easier. =) And it could be similar text... would not have to be the same text as in the Flash section, for those pages with embedded text.

Changing the entire site could be an extensive project. In some cases it is worth it, but in many cases, the simple addition of an articles section or a blog can be enough. The articles could even be done using blog software. The trick will be making it match the rest of the site. Your friend will need to use a template that matches, then incorporate her logo. The black makes it a bit easier.

By adding content in this way on a regular basis, and adding a link to the blog from the rest of the site you ensure that you have enough spider food. And you can link back to the main pages of your site from the blog to get visitors where you want them to go.

Blogs are a great traffic pull, just by the way they are designed. When set up correctly, they even auto-advertise every time you post new content.

SEO rankings are achieved by a number of factors, and back-links are one of them. In this instance, it is imperative to have a lot of back links. Since there is no content at all as far as the SE's are concerned, they need some way to see you are a great source of information, and what kind of information you have. Adding more content can lessen the need for as many back links, but as a general rule, you can never have too many backlinks if they are all from clean, decent sites, and the better ranked those sites are, the better for you.

And you helped her a bit today just by linking to her site from here... next time use some great anchor text. Like Tulsa's Baby and Child Photographer =)

Anywhere you can leave an appropriate link with great anchor text will help. Just make sure not to spam.

Edited to add: Forgot to mention a site map. Having a link to a site map is very helpful... and if you use wordpress there are free plugins that create a Google-friendly site map that will help Google find all your added content. Even if you don't add a blog, adding a site map gives you a place to add some anchor text to links to the main pages. Then link to the site map from the bottom of every page on your site so Google knows it is an important page.

Well... that depends on what your blog is. One way it can help in general is by getting involved in discussions like this where you can learn.

Give me the subject of your blog, and a link, and I'll give you my impressions.

in theory, having a link from a pr 7 page no matter if it is offsite or onsite will give your other pages some SEO juice. Thus bringing all the other pages in mahalo hopefully top rankings. I do believe at this point mahalo is becoming so big now that the word of mouth is just going to be crazy and this is really what you want when it comes to any site because when someone goes out of there way to recomend someone of this fantastic site mahalo... then it is just like a whirlwind and it starts to atract more and more attention.

Your page best netbooks is probably due to the fact that having the best in there is obviously going to be in a less competitive market rather then netbooks and mahalo's seo is so good that with the combination of on page seo and off page (linking) your page is definitely gonna get high rank provided also that mahalo keeps there pr 7 home page, which i dont see depreciating any time soon.

If you have any more questions @expertknowledge please let me know, im always glad to help.

Thanks, Mike !

Hi @Expertknowledge,

The answer is yes, and no.

Being part of the larger Mahalo site gets you spidered... and gives you some weight just because it is a trusted information site in the search engines' eyes. However, it will not be enough by itself.

It does have the effect of getting you spidered quickly and pushing you to the top for a week or so, but staying there is the challenge. Most pages on a site that do that will drop down quite a bit after that time, and stay there for a while before popping to the final position it should really be ranked at. A lot depends on how much competition you have for the main keywords.

Knowing that, it is important to keep improving the page. I've seen very active pages able to stay in the first couple of pages, even if they drop a little. And if you do drop down, keep updating anyway. You might just shorten the time that it takes to pop back in.

All that being said, there is quite a bit of savvy SEO that is built into the pages themselves. Mahalo is set up to be that way... which helps all of us. =)

There IS a formula for how page rank is transferred to interior pages on a site... and you can control more of it than you may realize when you have your own website. On a site like Mahalo, all you can do is try to get as many relevant inlinks to your page as possible, to give it more PR juice.

But don't despair if you don't have high page rank... it won't actually determine where you rank in the SERP's when someone searches on your keywords. I don't really worry about PR on my pages personally.

Just keep adding to your page on a consistent basis and make it the best source for the information your visitor wants and you should like the results. =)

Thanks @smartweb, some good info. I do have a question when you write:

"But don't despair if you don't have high page rank... it won't actually determine where you rank in the SERP's when someone searches on your keywords"

Isn't that the whole point of pagerank, to determine position? If two pages have similar content, I'd assume the one with the higher pagerank would come first in the search results.

you would think, wouldn't you?

but i've seen pages in position #1 with a page rank of 3 or less with position 2-5 higher page rank.

it is only one factor in where you appear. it is more important when you are looking to get incoming links or when linking to your own pages than it is in the actual SERP's, from what i have experienced.

i know others disagree with that... but i've been doing this a long time and i've seen the results.

if that is the only difference between two pages, it might make the difference, but how many incoming links, how well your page is optimized for that keyword, how many links use that anchor text for your page, etc, etc, etc all factor in as well.

i've also seen some really bad pages make it to #1... and stay there... they just had better link juice and other factors.

the best thing is to try to optimize each aspect of what determines rank, so that you can have a better combination than someone else.

Thanks @smartweb! Very interesting answers. I suppose Google's (and other search engines) algorithms are a mystery and the best we can do is create great content, hope that others find it useful and link back. It's great to have insight from someone who's been out there getting their feet wet.

exactly. and we all learn from each other. =)

we can all link to each other, too.

Hi @xds!

Thanks! I was excited to be asked to help in this way! =)

I agree that we can all improve. I'm always learning something new, and the world around us is always changing - SEO is no different.

Can you single out a page or two that you want me to look at?

Linking your pages will help, but only when it is relevant. You wouldn't want to link two pages that are completely different. It would hurt both of them. Wherever it is relevant, link away!

The first thing I do to make sure pages are indexed is to make use of the categories section. Add the page to every *relevant* category. Again, non-relevant hurts, relevant helps.

I've seen you mention Ping.FM before. I'm actually not familiar with that. I might have to pick your brain on the subject to increase *my* knowledge. I do use some mass social networking... just have to be careful not to have a ton of incoming links all on one day then nothing for a long time. =)

So... give me links to the pages you want some feedback on and tell me more about ping.fm...

Hi, thanks for the reply sw..

Ping.FM is a tool for posting to multiple social networking mediums all at once.
In ping.fm 's case over 100+ social networking sites.

I use this method sparingly however. And I market ethically.

Thanks again!

Correction: How to Care for a Giant African Millipede

More coffee needed...

Hi Victoria!

(Hint: you can edit your original question for up to an hour if you refresh the page after posting the question.)

Ok. I looked at what you said... it does appear that your How To Care For Tarantulas page is not spidered yet... or at least hasn't shown up in the index. That can take several days, depending on where in the process it gets picked up.

Page looks AWESOME, btw... =D

There are a couple of things you can do...

You don't have to compete with that page. You can manage both or just get them linked together. Any staff member can link the pages as related for you, or since no one manages the tarantula page you could claim it and do it yourself. If you don't have any more spots open, request an increase.

Personally, I'd manage both pages if it interested me. Make the Pet Tarantula page general info and the How To is already specific... just need to inlink them both in related pages and in the text itself.

Getting a link on a page that is already indexed is the key to getting a page indexed quickly... this would accomplish all of your goals, I think. =)

Hi and thanks for all the tips. Like how to make a correction, for instance. So much to learn. Thanks for the kudos on my tarantula page. I've been working hard on it. If I can ask a staffer to link them, that would be awesome. Can't do it myself yet, or I would. I guess, once I bag it, I can inlink to it, then inlink Pet Tarantula back to my How To page. Would be a nice one to add to my blog - The Alternative Pet and You. Pitch where you can!!

Thanks so much! When I am able (I think I need to be a How To team member), I will claim it and do just that! Great idea and I thank you so much.

Hit the nail on the head. =)

and Victoria... you don't have to be a How To team member to claim that page... it is not even a How To page.

You already manage the How To page for the care of Tarantulas... I'm guessing you did it as a Rush Week task...