Search Engine Optimization

Just spent a little more time on Google analytics and webmasters.  I am starting to get some decent key word generation for "Sierra" and  "Leone".  In order to have a site show up in a google search, google has to index the pages and see what words it finds often enough to think of as keywords for your site.  For a while there it was random stuff like 'initial' or 'introduction', nothing that was directly pertinent to the site or that would bring traffic.  But as of this morning 'Sierra' and 'Leone' are at the top the list for the site.  I also tried to get the googlebots to index each page - but I don't know that this happened, only that I fetched the page as a googlebot would see it (which I would think they'd have to go there to do it).  Anyway, the keywords themselves are starting to be a bit more indicative of my own project.

I also did a search for "walking lion" and I seem to be number four on the list.  Nice.  I am not having much of any increase in traffic, but I was solely having direct traffic for the most part - meaning someone typed www.walkinglion.org into the address bar -, then I started getting a decent amount of referring traffic from facebook and blogger (where the site is hosted), but now I am starting to get search engine traffic.  This is of course a good sign, people other than my friends/acquaintances may be starting to see the site.  What I need though is to get on the "Sierra Leone" key word list.  This is going to be extremely difficult, but things like "Sierra Leone hiking", "Sierra Leone non-profit", or other such things may not be to far fetched.  This however will take time, especially with the hiking part, as I will have to do an awful lot more writing on the hiking part of my trip.  Anyway, its all a step in the right direction...  enjoy...