Rubbish Keywords?

[Jayne]

Hi,

I had a PM from someone and they said my keywords were rubbish for my new site and I would be lost in the millions of other sites (well that's the short version)

I cannot think of any other words people would type in google to look for a site like mine.....any ideas chaps and chapesses :D

Thank You

Jayne

Oh, forgot..how many words are you allowed to put in?

Just deleted my keywords, just read another thread and I think they should be a secret? Not sure! So deleted them anyway :D

[ChooseRentals]

Hi Jayne,

Don't delete the keywords from your site, they are not secret imho and are used by most search engines, also they don't have to be just singular words, I mainly use phrases, so you could use as an example 'businesses for sale'.

[Ravenfire]

Keywords arent secret are they? I thought anyone could view them with page source

Jayne I hope they were polite when they told you!

[Jayne]

Thanks you two,

The chap who PM'd me was very nice when he told me...it was just my way of squashing the info' up he gave me. I'm a no frills sort of person, get straight to the point :lol:

I'll have a think about wording it different.

Thank You

Jayne

[coxadmin]

Hi,

I had a PM from someone and they said my keywords were rubbish for my new site and I would be lost in the millions of other sites (well that's the short version)

I wouldn't be surprised if the PM included an offer to optimise your site for a fee. Unfortunately some forum members think this is a good way to market their services. Personally I treat such PM's with the contempt they deserve.

[ChooseRentals]

The best way to find keywords is to type in a phrase, I'll use my previous example 'businesses for sale', into Google and look at your competitors sites and how they look and work.

Don't forget that you should use your keywords and phrases within the text of your page at least a few times as well, but don't overdo it.

[Jayne]

Hi,

I had a PM from someone and they said my keywords were rubbish for my new site and I would be lost in the millions of other sites (well that's the short version)

I wouldn't be surprised if the PM included an offer to optimise your site for a fee. Unfortunately some forum members think this is a good way to market their services. Personally I treat such PM's with the contempt they deserve.


He did offer to help me, I thought he was just being polite.

Jayne :D

[Jayne]

The best way to find keywords is to type in a phrase, I'll use my previous example 'businesses for sale', into Google and look at your competitors sites and how they look and work.

Don't forget that you should use your keywords and phrases within the text of your page at least a few times as well, but don't overdo it.


Thanks Warren,

There's loads to learn, but it's fun though :D

Jayne

[clickprofits]

From:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/?keywords=business+sale&country=uk

Wordtracker

business for sale 1,667.0 /day
small business for sale 244.0 /day
internet business for sale 63.0 /day
business for sale by owner 62.0 /day
business franchise for sale 56.0 /day

Overture UK
business for sale 866.8 /day
small business for sale 43.3 /day
business for sale in france 36.9 /day
business for sale in tenerife 36.7 /day
business for sale in spain 31.7 /day
bed and breakfast business for sale 28.5 /day
business for sale scotland 27.3 /day
business for sale in scotland 25.0 /day
business for sale cornwall 23.0 /day
spanish business for sale 20.6 /day
business for sale in uk 18.7 /day
florida business for sale 18.3 /day
business for sale france 17.5 /day
australian business for sale 16.6 /day
business for sale spain 16.3 /day
catering business for sale 15.9 /day
business for sale devon 15.0 /day
internet business for sale 13.7 /day
business for sale in wales 12.3 /day
business for sale in cornwall 12.0 /day
business property for sale 11.8 /day
business for sale abroad 11.2 /day
new zealand business for sale 11.1 /day
business for sale in florida 10.8 /day
bed breakfast business for sale in scotland 10.3 /day
business for sale in devon 10.0 /day

Wordtracker

buy a business 198.0 /day
buy business 93.0 /day
how to buy a business 85.0 /day
buy sell business merger acquisition 33.0 /day
looking to buy a business 23.0 /day

Overture UK

buy a business 107.2 /day
business to buy in spain 8.4 /day
how to buy a business uk 4.9 /day
buy a business abroad 4.8 /day
buy a small business 4.0 /day
business to buy in france 3.1 /day
catering business to buy 2.9 /day
buy sell business 2.7 /day
buy hairdressing business 2.5 /day
business buy finance 2.4 /day
buy business book online 2.0 /day
buy local business 2.0 /day

sell business 20.7 /day
buy sell business 2.7 /day
sell your small business 1.3 /day
sell business idea 1.0 /day
sell a business on the internet 1.0 /day

[Jayne]

Brilliant Thanks, how many can I use?

Jayne

[clickprofits]

Put the most relevant ones into google with quotes eg:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22buy+a+business%22&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB

The less competition the easier it will be to get a ranking for that phrase. Don't use them too often on the page - this is keyword spamming and will get you penalized (it also looks naff!) Choose a few of the most relevant phrases with less competiton and use those in your page titles and inbound links (links from other sites to yours).

Some links to useful resources here:
http://www.wdfm.com/publish/search_engine_optimization/index.htm

[Jayne]

It's going to take years to learn all this stuff.....that why they call it google, after a while you go googley :lol:

Thanks for all your help clickprofits, i've save all those web sites to learn!

Jayne

[multilingual]

Coxadmin,

Just for the record, it was I who spoke to Jayne via the PM, and I resent the comments that I did it to make a fee! You may treat my approach with contempt but as far as I am concerned the most polite medium for putting forward contructive criticisms is off the record, through a PM.

I thought we are all supposed to be helping each other in here, not throwing around cheap insults!

JB

[coxadmin]

Coxadmin,

Just for the record, it was I who spoke to Jayne via the PM, and I resent the comments that I did it to make a fee! You may treat my approach with contempt but as far as I am concerned the most polite medium for putting forward contructive criticisms is off the record, through a PM.

I thought we are all supposed to be helping each other in here, not throwing around cheap insults!

JB

My comment was not meant to be a cheap insult and I apologise for causing offence.

Unfortunately the circumstances I described in my response to Jayne happened to me on this forum - someone slated something I spent hours working on and then asked for feedback. They then PM'd me offering "help" for a fee. Sadly that attitude does exist on the forum even though it wasn't the case here.

As I said, I'm sorry for causing offence.

[multilingual]

Thanks Lynn,

All forgotten.

JB

[Jayne]

Thank you JB for your PM,

It has helped a lot, I didn't really understand most of it, but it's set me off finding out. I'm as green as grass, when it come's to techy stuff, but i'm enjoying learning.


Thanks again Jonathan,

Jayne :D

[babybiz]

Jayne I'm with you trying to learn all this is making me go nuts. It's not everything you need to do that's so bad it's the contradicting advice that makes me want to screem (obviously I'm grateful to be able to find any at all but you know what i mean). It's so confusing trying to sort it all out and come up with some kind of answer and it feels like people are busting a gut to share their secrets with you but can't bring themselves to offer you more than clues.

Still!! I signed up for wordtracker and the couple of pages I managed to do are getting more hits so I think it's working!! The basic gist of what I've found out so far (feel free to correct me, like I said it all makes my head spin!) is that you need to pick one or two key words (phrases) per page. Make sure you use them in the meta keyword, description, page title, in your alt tags for images and in the content but as clickprofits said don't stick them everywhere. Another theory seems to be to use other words connected to your keywords as well and also to have a general theme running through your site.

Trouble with me is I get much of the theory it's just very hard to put it into practice but I'll get there!

[Jayne]

Jayne I'm with you trying to learn all this is making me go nuts. It's not everything you need to do that's so bad it's the contradicting advice that makes me want to screem (obviously I'm grateful to be able to find any at all but you know what i mean). It's so confusing trying to sort it all out and come up with some kind of answer and it feels like people are busting a gut to share their secrets with you but can't bring themselves to offer you more than clues.

Still!! I signed up for wordtracker and the couple of pages I managed to do are getting more hits so I think it's working!! The basic gist of what I've found out so far (feel free to correct me, like I said it all makes my head spin!) is that you need to pick one or two key words (phrases) per page. Make sure you use them in the meta keyword, description, page title, in your alt tags for images and in the content but as clickprofits said don't stick them everywhere. Another theory seems to be to use other words connected to your keywords as well and also to have a general theme running through your site.

Trouble with me is I get much of the theory it's just very hard to put it into practice but I'll get there!


Thank you, but I don't think i'm as far on learning as you yet. I don't do any code things to my site, I had a designer do that. All I can change is the words I have in my admin pannel that says 'Keywords', I don't know how to add them tag things to google yet, I cannot even find the site to do it. I don't have a clue what these <> things do, so some of the advise just makes me pannic more. I don't know what the meta thing is either.

I have managed to register with google and that's about all i've figured out yet...sad isn't it :lol:

Jayne

[babybiz]

LOL Jayne, don't worry the only reason I know what they are is because I couldn't afford a designer so sat down and did the whole thing myself. Took a while to even understand the basics but I'm getting there, it's like anything if you sit down and play around sooner or later you'll understand at least in part what it does. In my case still a very small part. Whenever I get stuck on something I just ask on a forum or do a seach on them and eventually figure it out.

[Jayne]

I'm working things out slowly, I started to learn myself, but it was taking too long, so I paid someone to do my site. I'm not one for waiting when I decide to do something...I drive my husband up the wall, cannot wait for anything :lol:

I'm a chuck myself in the deep end sort of person and work the rest out later :lol: It's more fun that way!

Jayne

[multilingual]

I wanted to build my own site and invested about £200 in a package from a company in North America. They host the site but I had to build the pages myself.

When I bought it they sent me a book, which was about 300 pages deep. The first few pages went in and then straight out again! Took me a long time to understand what I was supposed to be doing, but I followed their advice as well as buying half of Amazon's supply of research books.

If you look on Google for 'Russian Translation' you will see that there are 16,500,000 results. My site is number 6.

It's a good feeling, and I wish you all the best with your site.

JB

[Jayne]

Thanks Jonathan,

I love a challenge and this new business will keep my mind busy for years, I get bored when I know everything, like running my bakery, after 12 years we've done most things and the challenge fizzles out a bit. Plus the compertition is more exciting on the web :D

Jayne

[babybiz]

I'm working things out slowly, I started to learn myself, but it was taking too long, so I paid someone to do my site. I'm not one for waiting when I decide to do something...I drive my husband up the wall, cannot wait for anything :lol:

I'm a chuck myself in the deep end sort of person and work the rest out later :lol: It's more fun that way!

Jayne

Oh yeah! I bought most of my stock before even thinking about how I would fix the website :lol: I've bought half of Amazon too (don't like the site but it does do the job) and kind of jump in and fix things as I go.

[clickprofits]

I would recommend this book as a good place to start - it gives the basics on the 3 main ways of getting traffic from Google - SEO (free traffic from good rankings in the standard listings); Adwords adverts (which appear on the right of the search results where you pay per click for each visitor) and the Froogle product feed which is free to submit to.

Please don't be offended by the title, it's a helpful book which explains things in an easy to understand way. :)

Building Your Business with Google for Dummies
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764571435/1567

[Jayne]

I would recommend this book as a good place to start - it gives the basics on the 3 main ways of getting traffic from Google - SEO (free traffic from good rankings in the standard listings); Adwords adverts (which appear on the right of the search results where you pay per click for each visitor) and the Froogle product feed which is free to submit to.

Please don't be offended by the title, it's a helpful book which explains things in an easy to understand way. :)

Building Your Business with Google for Dummies
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764571435/1567


I'm not offended, I know about the dummies books, I bought one for windows..they aren't bad are they. Still learning it :lol:

Thanks

Jayne

[clairemackaness]

I registered for Froogle, but I just dont get it. It's sooooo technical.

I think I might buy the book.

I developed my website myself after reading Frontpage for dummies.

oh....and when I got my kitten I read Kittens for Dummies too!!

[Jayne]

Right, i've changed my key words...how long does it take for a google crawl to come around again?

This is what I understand so far.....Google has spiders that run around reading the key words when google is crawling. These spiders pick the best words and the sites who get the most visits. So I have to get lots of people to click on my site, to be in with a chance with the spiders and have good words to match what people type in, when they are searching for a business.

I cannot mess about with my web site (my host/designer said not to, think I scared him a bit, so promised I wouldn't touch it :lol: ) so I don't need to know about the mega tag thing or (<>) those things. Is there anything I should know, which is important to learn straight away, to help my site get off the ground?

Thank You

Jayne

[gcmorris]

Jayne,

I have just had a quick look at your sites, there is more than one (www.bizfor.co.uk, www.bowbiz.co.uk). You need to carefully consider the meta-tags (title, description, keywords) for the major pages of the sites. The keywords are the least significant, but they should feature in the title, description and content as well.

I have a vested interest, but I suggest that you should consider getting some professional advice on the meta-tags. It does not need to cost a huge amount to bring them up to a reasonable level. Please take a look at www.metatune.com for some ideas. It is possible to spend vast amounts on optimisation, but I suggest that this is not a good idea when trying to launch a site.

Your sites are made using PHP. This makes it more tricky to have unique meta-tags for each page, but it it possible.

As a general comment, web designers are not that interested in meta-tags. Their pride is in the presentation of web sites. Meta-tags are quite often overlooked, which will seriously devalue the sites.

The success of a web based business is determined by the presentation and content of the web site, and getting people to visit the site. You are best placed to promote your site by getting as many people as you can to link to the site. Pay-per-click can help a lot. Posting articles on forums helps as well!

Good luck with the web business.

Graham Morris

[Jayne]

Thanks Graham,

I'll have a think about getting pro' help, not been going a week yet, so early days.

Thanks again,

Jayne

[c2webdesign]

Hi Jayne,

Looks like you have been swotting up - hopefully the good advice already posted will help but here's a few helpful ideas:

- Make sure your main keyword is in your title tag (between the <title></title> tags). The title tag is one of the most important, and overlooked, optimisation areas.

- Google, and MSN, likes content. The more related content on your website the better.

- Update your site, and add new pages, as often as you can. Another thing that will be in your favour.

- Find out which websites are linking to your higher ranking competition and ask them to link to you. It's these websites that are playing a part in helping your competition be above you!

- Your inner pages (anything other than your home page) is going to be more tricky because the way the website has been written i.e. using the one PHP page which is populated by your database. This means you have to make sure your main keywords are all in your home page.

Hope all this helps, and makes sense, but just remember that it does take time to build any good search engine placements. It doesn't happen overnight!

Best of luck,
Dean
C2 Web Design
http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk

Web Design | Online Marketing | Search Engine Optimisation

Want to increase your Search Engine position?
Sign up for a FREE search engine optimisation newsletter at http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk

[Jayne]

Hi Dean,

Yes i'm swatting..I understand you, whipee!

I've been trying to change the home page, but it will not save or change..just posted on my other thread about it.

Thanks for the info' learn some more now :D

Jayne

[Enigma121]

Hi,

I had a PM from someone and they said my keywords were rubbish for my new site and I would be lost in the millions of other sites (well that's the short version)

I wouldn't be surprised if the PM included an offer to optimise your site for a fee. Unfortunately some forum members think this is a good way to market their services. Personally I treat such PM's with the contempt they deserve.


Woah there camel!!! :shock:

I don't recall anyone saying you can't attempt to sell your product / services through this channel. Isn't that kind of the point of the forum?
To network with other businesses?

Anyway, good luck with the SEO work Jayne. If you have a bash and do well good on you. If you are struggling, give one of the many SEO firms a shout for assistance / guidance (who knows maybe even us). You'll be an ideal customer as you'll appreciate how tricky it can be! :lol:

[Jayne]

Hi,

Thanks for the offer, keeping a mental note :D When I start to earn money from the site, i'll be putting a little away for future advertising etc, until then it's DIY for me :D

Thank You

Jayne

[SmallBizSoftware]

Jayne

I like your site design (except it uses tables and I have just finished reading HTML Utopia designing without tables Using CSS .. and I have been converted).

But ... think from an SEO point of view it needs a lot of work. The biggest change seems to be to simply put your Jscript into an external file. I think that this means that for repeat vsiits your ages would load faster as well (as the javascript has already been loaded once).

[Jayne]

Jayne

I like your site design (except it uses tables and I have just finished reading HTML Utopia designing without tables Using CSS .. and I have been converted).

But ... think from an SEO point of view it needs a lot of work. The biggest change seems to be to simply put your Jscript into an external file. I think that this means that for repeat vsiits your ages would load faster as well (as the javascript has already been loaded once).

It turns out I cannot mess about with my site, my designer has all the controle over it. He advised me to leave it alone and give it a chance before doing anything...but it would be interesting to know what is a jarva script?

The only things I can do with my site is change keywords, which I have done. The only things I go involved with in the creation of my site was the design side, I did lots of pictures on paper and sent it to my designer.

Thank You

Jayne :D

[Diesel]

Put the most relevant ones into google with quotes eg:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22buy+a+business%22&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB

The less competition the easier it will be to get a ranking for that phrase. Don't use them too often on the page - this is keyword spamming and will get you penalized (it also looks naff!) Choose a few of the most relevant phrases with less competiton and use those in your page titles and inbound links (links from other sites to yours).

Some links to useful resources here:
http://www.wdfm.com/publish/search_engine_optimization/index.htm

Good info - thanks.

Do you think the footer I have on my website would be a negative for Google? Its just a simple summary of what we do, but its on all 10 pages, as a small footer.

Thanks

[socialmarketingmama]

20 keywords should suffice. Just pick the best ones that describe your site.

[Diesel]

Hmm just checked with Google and they said I had '6 duplicate Meta descriptions'. That'll be the footer then. Deleted to please Sir ;-)

D

[Tin]

Good info - thanks.

Do you think the footer I have on my website would be a negative for Google? Its just a simple summary of what we do, but its on all 10 pages, as a small footer.

Thanks

The thread is almost 3 and a half years old so you may not get a reply from anyone in the thread but newer members might respond :)

[Diesel]

LOL! It's clearly not 'new fangled then' Thanks:redface:

[chapelman]

Brilliant Thanks, how many can I use?

Jayne

Jayne, you're scaring me now. Get on to Amazon and buy a couple of books, "SEO for dummies" and "get into bed with Google" comes to mind.

Read them through once and then just work through Get into bed with Google. Use a spreadsheet, or a calendar and do a little to the site each day (or each day you have the time).

Don't just rely on people like me because you don't know how much I really know (very little in my case):D

[Tin]

Jayne, you're scaring me now. Get on to Amazon and buy a couple of books, "SEO for dummies" and "get into bed with Google" comes to mind.

Read them through once and then just work through Get into bed with Google. Use a spreadsheet, or a calendar and do a little to the site each day (or each day you have the time).

Don't just rely on people like me because you don't know how much I really know (very little in my case):D

Jayne's comment you have just replied to is almost 4 years old! It always pays to make sure you're replying to a relatively current thread.