I need SEO help...where do I look ?

[shpangle]

OK, I am good at what I do (making jewellery), and I quite enjoy tinkering with my website, but as far as SEO is concerned, I have only just found out what it stands for.

I am quite happy to continue to tinker with my website but I am looking for help with the content, keywords etc. I haven't really got the time or energy to do this properly myself.

Are there SEO consultants that would do this, and if so where do you look for good ones and what would they charge ?

Thanks
Mick

[gillyfleur]

......... but as far as SEO is concerned, I have only just found out what it stands for.

Will you enlighten me as well then please ? I read all the posts on here and sit for ages trying to come up with what it stands for and I'm still not there - obviously IT and ECommerce aren't my strengths !! I might understand what I'm reading a little better in future if I knew......:|

[david64]

Best thing is to start with some reading:

http://semlabs.co.uk/seo-help
http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization
http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/index.php/diy-seo/

and then come back here with any questions you have.

[ComputerCoders]

It would be better to have that Google Analytics code just above your body end </body> tag unless your CMS dictates otherwise.

If you need an expert our website is computercoders.co.uk if you use the Contact form on there I can get back to you on Monday.

[shpangle]

It would be better to have that Google Analytics code just above your body end </body> tag unless your CMS dictates otherwise.

If you need an expert our website is computercoders.co.uk if you use the Contact form on there I can get back to you on Monday.

Why is that then ? And what does CMS stand for ?

Thanks
Mick

[shpangle]

All I really want is someone to look at my site, product and what I would like to achieve and to advise me on how best to structure my site in terms on content, keywords etc. I am happy to do the donkey work and modify the site accordingly. There seems to be loads of conflicting advise out there and thats why have raised this thread.

Thanks
Mick

[david64]

All I really want is someone to look at my site, product and what I would like to achieve and to advise me on how best to structure my site in terms on content, keywords etc. I am happy to do the donkey work and modify the site accordingly. There seems to be loads of conflicting advise out there and thats why have raised this thread.

SEO is not that simple. Hence why it is a proession on its own and not just a quick fix thing. Any advice you get on your site will be uneducated as I doubt anyone here has a good knowledge of the search trends for your products and the products themselves. Acquiring that knowledge is going to take hours to do it anywhere near properly. Best place to start is probably the SEOMoz guide:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization

That should give you enough information that you should be able to do the work yourself. If you don't understand specific points, come back here and ask for help.

Educating yourself is also a better option to just accepting advice that may come your way on here as you will have an understanding of what you are doing as opposed to following blind instructions.

[GreatSEO]

SEO MADE EASY.

As a small business owner myself that runs salesandmarketingforums.co.uk I have found that SEO is a massive minefield. The jargon and secrets that surround the industry are now everywhere. There are so many different versions of what to do and not what to do that I did not know where to start.

So putting it simply 6 months ago I set out on a mission to learn SEO using all the different sources I had available to me. Mainly spending my time on the net reading up and putting the stuff I had learnt in front of a number of supposed experts I learnt in a very short period the basics and now I would like to put them into plain English for you to benefit from. Have you been asking yourself where do I begin? What is correct?What do I have to do?How long will it take? Since I started my journey I have achieved a number of first positions in Google and will continue my efforts to make the salesandmarketingforums.co.uk site sit pretty in all the key major search engines.

So lets begin, the first thing that you need to do is some keyword research to find out what sort of traffic you can expect from the terms you are optimising for - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal this is what I have used as it is a great tool. Now let me also say here that if you have a new site or a site that has no onsite SEO done to it, it is not worth trying to get a primary keyword to rank for e.g. marketing. Instead you need to look at things like direct marketing London or advice on marketing surrey these are a lot easier to rank for but you need to make sure that they get traffic.

Also when typing this into a search engine you need to check the amount of total results as this is the amount of competition you will be up against. That should cover keyword research in its simplest terms you need to find keywords that will help you gain targeted traffic to your business service/product so that the traffic converts to enquiries. There are a number of experts that also believe that the site content will help towards the amount of conversions that you will receive and I am pleased to say that since we upgraded our site we have seen a 40% increase in the amount of new registered users so this is very true.

High traffic volumes is good but only if it becomes a converted lead or sale for your business.

Then we need to look at your onsite search engine optimisation and this includes

Meta Site Description

Headers

Meta Keywords

Alt Tags

Meta Tag Content There is a Meta Tag Analyzer here that may well help http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html

You can also find out a little more about how META tags work and what they are here http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931

Sometimes playing with these yourself can result in damage so it is best to get someone to do it that knows what they are doing but a great tool to check your meta content is here http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html this should give you an idea of what you can do to make things better for your meta content and is something that I have used to moderate success.

Your page content is also very important it needs to relay all of the information in the above to the user of your site in a very friendly way (something I am working on). A spider BOT will crawl through your site from top to bottom and also bottom to top.

Sometime having something like the areas that you cover and services you provide can also benefit your efforts of SEO. Your page needs to contain your keywords but not too many times I would say twice is ok otherwise the search engines can class it as spam like and result in reduced rankings.

A great tool is Google Webmaster tools http://www.google.com/webmasters/ this is a great resource for uploading your site map to get it indexed more often by the search engines and you can create a complete sitemap here http://www.auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp completely free of charge. This is relatively easy and will give you again another stamp in the pad.

Theres also a number of free tools here http://www.seomoz.org/toolbox that again are relatively easy to use. All of the above is for onsite promotion (as it is referred to in the industry) there is also off site SEO and this mainly consists of links coming to your site. To start with there are a number of directories that have a good page rank (Googles quality view of your site as I understand it) here http://www.bloggingmix.com/2008/02/20/submit-your-blog-free-directory-no-reciprocal-link-needed/. This is a good place to start with directory submissions. You will also need to submit your site to all of the main search engines here http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html from all of this your email may be harvested and you could gain a lot of spam so it may be a good idea to get yourself a Gmail, Yahoo or hotmail account for this exercise.

Once you have done all of them it may be a good idea to join social networking sites like www.facebook.com, www.myspace.com and even forums like www.salesandmarketingforums.co.uk to share in a wealth of information covering all other angles of running your business.

Link building is then the ongoing concern, the ideal links are the ones that will benefit you so for example if you are targeting marketing advice London you need to type marketing advice in to the search engine and email the webmaster enquiring whether they will link to you to benefit their users with your product/service. You will need a good angle and it is a good idea to make sure that you link to the page you would like your link to be placed.

Press releases from people like www.10yetis.co.uk can also be a great benefit to your SEO results along with submitting articles and comments to blogs that are related to your service/products as they will be read by your target audience. All in SEO is a very long and time consuming thing to do but if you get it right you can reap the rewards

[sirearl]

I think the OP might be advised to go the D.I.Y route as the value of the products would not seem high enough to employ pro's.

Earl

[shpangle]

Educating yourself is also a better option to just accepting advice that may come your way on here as you will have an understanding of what you are doing as opposed to following blind instructions.

Looks like I have a bit of reading to do then. I seem to be spending more time tinkering with my website etc than actually making my jewellery lately ! Oh well, looks like its going to be another sleepless night thinking of acronyms !

Mick

[ComputerCoders]

SEO MADE EASY.

Meta Keywords



Meta Keywords don't count in Google, Live or Yahoo.

[shpangle]

I think the OP might be advised to go the D.I.Y route as the value of the products would not seem high enough to employ pro's.

Earl


Products...NO But services....YES !!!!

[ComputerCoders]

Looks like I have a bit of reading to do then. I seem to be spending more time tinkering with my website etc than actually making my jewellery lately ! Oh well, looks like its going to be another sleepless night thinking of acronyms !

Mick

It depends on how busy you are as to whether you should try to learn a new skill when you're in business. Also what is your time worth? How long would it take you to learn and then apply? How much could you pay an expert to do it? Is that less than it would cost you at your rate of pay?

If it takes you 10 hours to carry out a piece of work that takes someone who's a real expert 2 hours (because that's all they do all day every day) then you might as well pay that someone to do it for you. But I suppose if you've got a bit of time on your hands and have a genuine interest in it then go ahead.

There's also the matter of keeping up with new developments in SEO and the related fields like Information Architecture, Web Development and Usability that the real professionals are also aware of.

[sirearl]

Products...NO But services....YES !!!!

Oh I can only see weddings as a service on the site what else do you do then.?

Just mention D.I.Y as you are in a high competition area and SEO that would do you any good is going to be quite expensive.

The jewlers that turn over 100 of thousands a week are the big spenders.

Earl

[Chunkford]

Right this is my view so take it with a pinch of salt.
I see Google making more of an effort to display their sponsored ads.
When Caffeine goes live after the xmas hols, they will add more to the results. More products from base, more adds from maps, more ads from adwords images etc, so eventually the majority of results on page 1 will basically be controlled by Google to create more revenue, either that be from pay per click or pay per venue. They are a business after all.
So as there will be a need for SEO to get your site up for the long tail etc, the ppc and others will be the area to look into.
Thats just my 2p worth on a Sat night ;)

[Chunkford]

BTW I talk about Google as they are the giant of search

[mattsaw]

When Caffeine goes live after the xmas hols, they will add more to the results. More products from base, more adds from maps, more ads from adwords images etc, so eventually the majority of results on page 1 will basically be controlled by Google to create more revenue, either that be from pay per click or pay per venue. They are a business after all.

The caffeine update isn't about altering the search results page interface, it's designed to increase the size of the index.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/caffeine-update/

Q: It doesn’t look any different to me?
A: The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure. But some of the search results do change, so we wanted to open up a preview so that power searchers and web developers could give us feedback.

[Chunkford]

True, but i bet it also opens new doors to things they couldn't do before. Who knows what Caffeine changes behind the scene?

[mattsaw]

True, but i bet it also opens new doors to things they couldn't do before. Who knows what Caffeine changes behind the scene?

All signs at the moment point to a larger index which will impact on how this is factored into the ranking results.

My guess is that for a normal user nothing will change. For Google they'll simply be able to rely on a larger data-set to rank sites.

[Chunkford]

They are already experimenting on extra paid results tho - http://adwords.blogspot.com/2009/11/announcing-product-listing-ads.html

Which i'm sure they couldn't of done before else they would of done it. (I maybe wrong).
They are a business, so they try to obtain as much money as they can. The Keyword you are trying to get on the 1st page for will be (more) difficult with SEO alone.
So what i am probably saying is that SEO and PPC will become 1, and thats business will need to invest in.

[mattsaw]

They are already experimenting on extra paid results tho - http://adwords.blogspot.com/2009/11/...sting-ads.html (http://adwords.blogspot.com/2009/11/announcing-product-listing-ads.html)

That's not related to the caffeine update though, as far as I know the new shopping results are already being used.

Google has to be careful, you're correct that they'll always want to squeeze as much money out of the paid results as possible, but the moment the paid results take over from the natural results is the moment they start to lose market share.

People use Google to find all sorts of things, searchers are generally either commercial, informational or navigational. People don't pay to be found for giving away information, stop being a source of information and people will go elsewhere. It's a balancing act.

[Chunkford]

Defo, agree completely. Google do need to be careful. But it makes you wonder why they haven't done it sooner???
I can see this happening tho. They already have extra space on the right hand side of the adwords (where before the adwords ads used to be flush on the RHS). What they will do with it who knows, but i'm sure they will use it to it's full potenital/their advantage ;)

[paulyt]

SEO is a hard one as there are so many companies out there offering 'Black Hat' link building where your site performs really well initially, but gets worse over time. I would always look to appoint a company where you could get references from existing clients.

[shpangle]

Oh I can only see weddings as a service on the site what else do you do then.?

Just mention D.I.Y as you are in a high competition area and SEO that would do you any good is going to be quite expensive.

The jewlers that turn over 100 of thousands a week are the big spenders.

Earl

Hi,

Many thanks for all your advice on this so far. I just need to clarify my position a little because I think I may have confused matters.

I am not trying to compete with the big name jewellers. My jewellery is handmade (by me) and is mainly sold at craft fairs etc. The prices of 'shop' jewellery are quite low as they really target the repeat business from sales at craft fairs.

The majority of my online orders come from word of mouth, forums and a few organic searches. However almost all of these orders are requests for bespoke custom made jewellery. These are usually requests for anything from locks of hair, flowers, photos and even in one case 'toe nail clippings', anything that is personal to the person to be preserved in an item of jewellery.

Weddings is one area, however if my website gives the impression that is the only area then that is another problem that needs to be looked at. What I am really after is some consutancy (not just SEO and I appologise for misleading everyone). But someone who can offer advice and point out these failures such as 'I can only see weddings as a service on the site'

Thanks
Mick

[GreatSEO]

Feel free to ask your questions on the forums that way you will get a good open response from a number of people and inevitably save in marketing consultants fees.

And I am a marketing consultant (should I be saying this and shooting myself in the foot :')

Dave

[paulyt]

No problem.
As we are all probably aware, SEO is an essential part of the marketing mix, but there is no point in dedicating huge amounts of effort to capture traffic if the landing point (home page on a website?) is confusing, hard to navigate about, looks unfinished etc.
My suggestion is to get your 'house in order' first!:) Get a critique of the current site, possibly even get feedback from existing customers and/or suppliers and implement them. Make sure that your site has analytics on each page of your website so you can view traffic and how people behave once on your site (bounce rate, time spent on site etc).

Does this help?!?!?

Regards

Paul

[shpangle]

Feel free to ask your questions on the forums that way you will get a good open response from a number of people and inevitably save in marketing consultants fees.

And I am a marketing consultant (should I be saying this and shooting myself in the foot :')

Dave

I will ask for a site critique from fellow forum members when I have worked up the courage :)

Thanks for your help

Mick

[Martfox Hosting UK]

OK, I am good at what I do (making jewellery), and I quite enjoy tinkering with my website, but as far as SEO is concerned, I have only just found out what it stands for.

I am quite happy to continue to tinker with my website but I am looking for help with the content, keywords etc. I haven't really got the time or energy to do this properly myself.

Are there SEO consultants that would do this, and if so where do you look for good ones and what would they charge ?

Thanks
Mick

Hi Mick,

have a look on our page SEO Services (http://www.webdesign-creative.com/shopping-cart/other-services/) or send me a PM.

Thanks.

[paulyt]

Hi again Mick.
In a nutshell, I can look at this for you and have just done something very similar for a client called Karus.com (speak to Wayne if you need a reference).
Would need to have a proper chat re your TA, whether you have an existing Google account for analytics etc etc.
If you want, please have a look at my website and I have a Blog that may well answer any additional questions.

Look forward to hearing from you.

regards

Paul
Bath Marketing Consultancy

[Martfox Hosting UK]

Meta Keywords don't count in Google, Live or Yahoo.

Are you 100% sure? Would you delete the meta keywords line in your customer homepage?

I sure don't.

[Martfox Hosting UK]

That's not related to the caffeine update though, as far as I know the new shopping results are already being used.

Google has to be careful, you're correct that they'll always want to squeeze as much money out of the paid results as possible, but the moment the paid results take over from the natural results is the moment they start to lose market share.

People use Google to find all sorts of things, searchers are generally either commercial, informational or navigational. People don't pay to be found for giving away information, stop being a source of information and people will go elsewhere. It's a balancing act.

Very nice post

[Martfox Hosting UK]

It's really funny to reading posts from some "SEO Specialists" and if you check their own sites, they don't have any PR or other important SEO factors on own pages, but they do offer it to customers.

Funny, isn't?

[paulyt]

Hmm, I hope you are not including me in that comment!!! My site has been fully optimised and all SEO related articles are posted on my Blog!

[Martfox Hosting UK]

Hmm, I hope you are not including me in that comment!!! My site has been fully optimised and all SEO related articles are posted on my Blog!

Don't worry :)

[paretowasright]

Don't worry :)

The problem is we can't read your 'poker face' ;)

[Andycal]

Are you 100% sure? Would you delete the meta keywords line in your customer homepage?

I sure don't.

Absolutely sure, Google confirms it on their blog.

As to whether it's worth having them in the first place, well, it's down to time. If I'm building pages and I've got time or the customer will be using directories, then I'll add them in. But if I'm in a rush or there's no need for directory submission then I'll leave it 'till later.

They're useful for directories that scrape them for their own indexes but utterly pointless for the big search engines and have been for years.

[Martfox Hosting UK]

Absolutely sure, Google confirms it on their blog.

As to whether it's worth having them in the first place, well, it's down to time. If I'm building pages and I've got time or the customer will be using directories, then I'll add them in. But if I'm in a rush or there's no need for directory submission then I'll leave it 'till later.

They're useful for directories that scrape them for their own indexes but utterly pointless for the big search engines and have been for years.

That's right, but I would leave it there.

[ComputerCoders]

The big three Google, Yahoo and Bing don't consider them. But they aren't the only search engines, just the most important ones.