Need some help getting ranked please

[mirrorsreflect]

Hey Folks. I've come to pick your brains.

About 6 months ago, I decided to open an ecommerce site after spending 12 months on ebay selling shatterproof mirrors. I purchased an ecommerce template, and cracked on. It was all new to me and at times I thought about giving up as it was taking a lot of time to get right.

I didnt though, and eventually got a site together that I'm fairly happy with. Then I heard about something called SEO.

More research followed, and after a couple of months, I managed to get my site on position 1 page 1 of google for the search term Shatterproof Mirrors.

Not bad I thought, until I realised that nobody really uses that search term :eek:

D'oh. So, over the last ~8 weeks, I have been trying everything I know to get ranked for the term bathroom mirrors. For some reason though, I just cant seem too. I've changed everything from keywords, to titles to descriptions, and waited patiently for the updates to be crawled - only to see no effect.

Can anyone see anything blatantly obvious that I am just missing?

www.mirrorsreflect.com (http://www.mirrorsreflect.com)

Thanks

[fisicx]

Exactly the same replies as have been given before:

1. Page titles need to have the product first not your name.
2. You need headers (h1, h2 etc).
3. You need content - words on the page.

This is the sum total of the indexable content on this page: http://mirrorsreflect.com/proddetail.asp?prod=camp-50cm:

www.mirrorsreflect.com (http://www.mirrorsreflect.com) - Shatterproof Acrylic Campervan Mirror - 50cm Campervan Mirror - 50cm (Back to product) Home » Vehicle Mirrors Campervan Mirror - 50cm Untitled Document Free Delivery! Free Adhesive Pads! 50cm x 36.5cm Shatterproof 'Campervan Style' Safety Mirror (19.5" x 14") Price: £29.99 « Previous | Next »

Pretty pants I think.

Take a look at your bathroom mirror page. The keywords are at the end of the page title which means Google won't think they are very important. Make them the first words in the page title and I bet you'll see an immediate improvmenmt.

At the same time sort out the code and get all that CSS and Javascript into external files.

[mirrorsreflect]

But is it not the homepage I'm trying to get ranked and not the individual product pages?

When I search google for 'bathroom mirrors', I am shown a list of homepages and not actual links to product pages

The link you picked may not be the best content wise, but a little more looking around would have seen a page such as this:

http://www.mirrorsreflect.com/proddetail.asp?prod=toilethh%2D15&cat=29

It gives a little more content and so far I'm about 60/40 through the products I have already put on there

As for H1 tags, I have them as far as I know?

So at the moment, the page title for bathroom mirrors is;

www. mirrorsreflect.com - Shatterproof Bathroom Mirrors

Your saying change it to;

Bathroom Mirrors - www. mirrorsreflect.com

Its just that thats the format for the homepage and it doesnt seem to have had an impact as of yet?

Cheers

[fisicx]

Changing the page titles is a start but it's everything else on the page that needs fixing. The homepage isn't ranking for 'bathroom mirrors' because there is nothing else on the page about bathroom mirrirs.

You don't have any H1 (or H2 for that matter). You don't have enough unique content on the pages. You are using images instead of text. Your page structures are all wrong. You are trying to DIY when it needs someone with experience of building and marketing ecommerce stores.

[mirrorsreflect]

H1 tags are at the foot of the homepage with the note about the special offer - as far as I can tell

And how do you suggest I add content to the homepage about bathroom mirrors. If you look at the top 3 placements on google, they too have no particular content, so how are they ranking

When it was ranked for 'shatterproof mirror' there was as much content related to shatterproof mirrors then, as there is now related to bathroom mirrors, if that makes sense

I've changed keyword density from having 3 instances of 'bathroom' all the way up to having 12 instances, both with no effect.

And surely I need images as its an ecommerce site and not a blog

Is it possible that the term 'bathroom mirrors' is much more fought after, so it may just take more time?

Cheers

[fisicx]

There is no H1. In any case it need to be at the top of the page, it is after all the main heading.

Having 12 instances of the word 'bathroom' on the page would be considered OTT and may cause problems.

It's not the images, it's the fact that you have your words as images.

Why do you want to rank for 'bathroom mirrors' anyway. You don't sell bathroom mirrors you sell shaped mirrors, you sell self adhesive mirrors, you sell plastic mirrors. People looking for a bathroom mirrors don't really want you sell, I can't really see myself trying to shave in a 15cm eye mirror. What I can see is my daughter wanting to buy one for her bedroom because it's funky.

But even then you have got the design of the site all wrong - three pages for one product means loads of duplicate content which means a reduction in the pages in the index.

Forget the 3 top sites for bathroom mirrors. They aren't your competition. Your prospective customers are a whole different group.

Looking at the site and all the problems you had a few months back when you first asked for help are still there. Stop trying to do it yourself and pay someone to do it for you. If you don't you will be in exactly the same position six months from now.

[mirrorsreflect]

Yeah, you might be right. Might leave the bathroom mirror mission and go for some alternatives. My planning was to get organic traffic off 'bathroom mirrors' as its a very searched term, and then get sales through the high traffic rate

Not sure what you mean about three pages for one product though?

Are you on about the 3 different sizes for each product?

[fisicx]

Yes.

On the catergory pages you should only show each style once and lead to a product page where there are three options.

But, this is just tinkering. There is a list of problems as long as your arm that you need to fix. I'd begin by reading this : http://webstyleguide.com/

[tomsk]

I would also pay attention to all the <meta name="description" on your pages

[Webtistic]

In addition to the on-site issues (of which there are plenty), you don't have a single inbound link of any particular value.

It is imperative that you commence with a link building campaign ASAP so that Google can apportion trust/authority to your website.

You can do what you like with your web pages, but if you don't have inbound links you will not rank anywhere for competitive terms.

[mirrorsreflect]

Well, like I said before - 6 months ago I had no idea about web design, so take it easy fellas. I'm a designer by trade; and not a web designer.

I came here asking for some help as I'm well aware its no amazon

As for inbound links.. I've given up on that to be honest. Spent a while adding my site to every directory I could find, apparently to no avail. Then there are sites like this very one where you pay a premiuim to become a full member which includes a 'quality back link'

Hmmm.. it seems not

[alanc]

Then there are sites like this very one where you pay a premiuim to become a full member which includes a 'quality back link'

Hmmm.. it seems not
Try putting a home page URL into your profile. Why do you think the spammers are always here?

[fisicx]

I really wouldn't worry about inbound links. If you target the niche market as I suggested you won't have any problems getting ranked. It really isn't that difficult but not something you should attempt on your own. As you have discovered it's easy to spend hours doing what you think is the right thing only to discover it was a waste of time. Undirected directory submission is one of these waste of time activities.

[mirrorsreflect]

Thanks alanc - not sure what that will do but its done :)

And thanks fisicx - I've taken onboard what you have said as I'm guessing your pretty talented at this kinda stuff. I've got a new list of keywords that I'm going to have a play around with courtesy of Googles keyword tool.

Like you suggested, they are more niche based and not as widespread as 'bathroom mirrors'

Good advice

Cheers

[fisicx]

Remember however that the keywords tool is based on adwords results and may not reflect the effectiveness of an organic listing. Rather than spend too much time with the keywords tools why not just do some writing.

However this still won't fix some of the more fundamental problems with the site. A decent developer could fix these in a couple of hours where it's going to take you weeks to learn how to DIY.

[alanc]

Thanks alanc - not sure what that will do but its done :)
Setup a Google Webmasters account. It's free, and will tell you what Google really think of your website.

[mirrorsreflect]

fisicx - your right about the fundamental problems, but to be honest, I wouldn't even no where to look for a developer who could do the things you suggest (and more importantly, one that wouldnt want paying a small fortune).

And what do you mean by do some writing?

alanc, I have one. It doesnt seem too offended by it - well, theres no obvious crawl errors or anything

[fisicx]

Start writing some winning copy. Use your page titles, meta description, headings and content to entict people to click and then to buy. If you don't know how to write convincing copy you need to pay someone to do it for you.

Same with a developer. If you don't have the money to invest in the website you will always struggle. But supopose you spend £1000 getting the site more effective, you could recoup that money 10 times over in new business.

Many of the things I have suggested are easy to to if you know how. If you don't know how then you will have to pay someone to do it for you. Pay and get more business or try to DIY and struggle. Up to you really.

[ruby.mein]

Keyword research! You can use some of the tools to help you search for possible keywords:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

[hollowleg]

Mirrors

You have a grand total of twelve links going into your site. That's according to Yahoo. Google will see less, but I haven't checked.

More backlinks.

Try Social Bookmarking.

Spend $10 (dollars) at Digital Point and get someone to do it for you.

You should get 50-100 for that. About one third will stick. See if it does any good. If it does then repeat. If it doesn't your down $10. No biggy.

Cheers

[fisicx]

Try Social Bookmarking.

Spend $10 (dollars) at Digital Point and get someone to do it for you.

You should get 50-100 for that. About one third will stick. See if it does any good. If it does then repeat. If it doesn't your down $10. No biggy.
That's just baaaaaad advice. I personally wouldn't trust anything anyone does at DP and in any case social bookmarking is as pointless as blog commenting.

[hollowleg]

In which case he'll be $10 down!!

Care to expand on why this won't work. Seriously I'm curious.

[fisicx]

Social bookmarking is now such a widespread activity that any links thus generated will be practically worthless. It's no different to directory submission. Whilst there are some useful bookmarking sites and directories any that accept unsolicited submissions are a waste of time. You will also find many advocating commenting on do-follow blogs. Again a waste of time.

There is a general rule that: the easier a link is to get the lower the value of that link.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/good-times-with-inbound-links.html

[hollowleg]

Ok thanks.

What about the value of linkwheels with web 2.0 sites like hubpages and squidoo, same thing?

[fisicx]

Linkwheels had thier day but I'm not so sure they have much value anymore now that Google has a patent against such activities: http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=1248

Any form of artificial linking is dodgy. The black hats and others will use a method until the SE catches up and then they move onto something else.

If your site is well constructed and if full of useful info then you often only need a few good quality links to make it onto page 1. Unless of course you are in a very competitive field in which case use any method you can find and hope the SE doesn't catch on.

[hollowleg]

Thanks appreciate the reply.