Whats happened?

[Esk247]

Very odd.

My websites just died, as in, the hits have gone from a steady 10 - 15 uniques a day to nothing...for a week..dead.

so i went to google, typed Website Design in Whitby, i'm still first page of Google which is where people tend to find me.

why no hits? nothing..nada..i at least get a few even though i'm not really running the website anymore.

oh this is www.esk247.co.uk by the way.

[directmarketingadvice]

Very odd.

My websites just died, as in, the hits have gone from a steady 10 - 15 uniques a day to nothing...for a week..dead.

so i went to google, typed Website Design in Whitby, i'm still first page of Google which is where people tend to find me.

Are you still page 1 for everyone? Or could these just be personalised results?

why no hits?

You need to start off by working out what's changed. Which traffic sources did you have before, what's changed about them (rankings, competitors, search volume etc).

Steve

[directmarketingadvice]

Ps If I search on Website Design in Whitby, a large part of the page is taken up with results from Whitby, ON, Canada.

Steve

[Esk247]

Are you still page 1 for everyone? Or could these just be personalised results?



You need to start off by working out what's changed. Which traffic sources did you have before, what's changed about them (rankings, competitors, search volume etc).

Steve

still Page 1 for everyone, from what i can tell anyway, i'm in the middle of page 1 for that search term, which is up two places from last week, thats when the results changed.

i have modified the website, it's now only a singular page as i look to scale everything down. That would change conversion rates, black background is not a favourite, but i'm not getting anything..at all..no hits.

how odd.

i haven't changed any of the Tags, just the page text and such.

[Esk247]

Ps If I search on Website Design in Whitby, a large part of the page is taken up with results from Whitby, ON, Canada.

Steve

alas..a common problem i face..you have to search under UK only results..it's a frickin nightmare that google doesn't recognise your location on startup.

[freeroam]

Maybe it's something to do with the fact "Website Design in Whitby" is an extremely rare keyword? Google doesn't have enough information on this keyword to give me any kind of stats.

Also...I'm failing to see much point in focusing on this keyword. If you're based in Whitby, and people are looking for website design in Whitby. Shouldn't you focus on getting the word out in your local area?

You're targeting the WWW with "web design in whitby" with a next to 0% success rate... instead of targeting Whitby with "web design in whitby" which will lead to a higher success rate... I suggest that the interest for this keyword has simply "died". It might come back every so often... but unlikely.

[Esk247]

Maybe it's something to do with the fact "Website Design in Whitby" is an extremely rare keyword? Google doesn't have enough information on this keyword to give me any kind of stats.

Also...I'm failing to see much point in focusing on this keyword. If you're based in Whitby, and people are looking for website design in Whitby. Shouldn't you focus on getting the word out in your local area?

You're targeting the WWW with "web design in whitby" with a next to 0% success rate... instead of targeting Whitby with "web design in whitby" which will lead to a higher success rate... I suggest that the interest for this keyword has simply "died". It might come back every so often... but unlikely.

hmm this is what i was wondering. web design is more commonly used, i would target scarborough or middlesbrough but they are hotly contested areas, there are some great seo experts so i don't know if i would have an increase in results but i'll give it a go.

oh and p.s. it says we do SEO, but that isn't me ofcourse..as you can tell...it's outsourced :) just for reference.

[freeroam]

Glad I stirred up some thoughts. Also if you are going to start marketing to a larger area, I'd consider getting some opinions on your website... it's quite unimpressive for a "website design" company and doesn't show off any skills, no portfolio etc and quite honestly I wouldn't buy from you.

However if your research into customer impressions of your website proves me wrong, go ahead and keep it.

[Faevilangel]

Your showing in Place 5 on page 1 for Website Design in Whitby and web design in whitby

[Esk247]

Glad I stirred up some thoughts. Also if you are going to start marketing to a larger area, I'd consider getting some opinions on your website... it's quite unimpressive for a "website design" company and doesn't show off any skills, no portfolio etc and quite honestly I wouldn't buy from you.

However if your research into customer impressions of your website proves me wrong, go ahead and keep it.

there is very little interest in google searches for web design in this area anyway, i've talked to some competitors and they say that people work on 'word of mouth'.

my website previously featured a full portfolio, online ordering and pay monthly solutions for small business...nobody was interested..i still only got work from actually going out and having a chat with people.

the site is being wound down at the moment as i'm on with other projects, i was just staggered to see such a drop off in hits and so quickly.

[Esk247]

no i still dont get it.

I'm on page one or 1st spot on google for:

Web Design in Whitby
Website Design in Whitby
Esk247
Web Hosting in Whitby
Hosting in Whitby
search engine optimisation in whitby


and for all of those..i dont get any hits? at all? i'm not even getting direct hits now from people typing the web address in.

this is mighty odd.

Conversion is second, hits are first, i need to get hits then worry about converting to sales with good copy and design etc.

perhaps nobody is looking for those services in whitby...ever.

[Faevilangel]

no i still dont get it.

I'm on page one or 1st spot on google for:

Web Design in Whitby
Website Design in Whitby
Esk247
Web Hosting in Whitby
Hosting in Whitby
search engine optimisation in whitby


and for all of those..i dont get any hits? at all? i'm not even getting direct hits now from people typing the web address in.

this is mighty odd.

Conversion is second, hits are first, i need to get hits then worry about converting to sales with good copy and design etc.

perhaps nobody is looking for those services in whitby...ever.

What does Google webmasters say? Check your error logs!

[Esk247]

Over 4000 links to my website on webmaster tools.

Ah now i've noticed it says:

Crawl Errors: URL 403 error from July 7

Could that be the problem?

[eventdomain]

hmmmm, usually people want web designers :|

Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to get in some directories like YP and Thomson, its free and might drum up the odd client or two :) It is worth putting up your web portfolio again and some testimonials too.

Give it one last stab, then at least you can say you tried....

[Esk247]

hmmmm, usually people want web designers :|

Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to get in some directories like YP and Thomson, its free and might drum up the odd client or two :) It is worth putting up your web portfolio again and some testimonials too.

Give it one last stab, then at least you can say you tried....

well i spent nearly £500 on local magazine advertising last year, not a single enquiry, a few more web hits, but nothing locally.

I made more in roads just going round and chatting or contacting people who had very badly designed/non updated websites and asking if they would like websites updated and such.

[Ranks]

How are you recording your stats? Have you included the stat counter code in the new design? Are you recording/seeing your own hits the the site? And ones from the link in the thread?
Jay

[OldWelshGuy]

yep, lots of crawl errors will lose you google trust rank, and lower your overall ranking link juice

[Esk247]

yep, lots of crawl errors will lose you google trust rank, and lower your overall ranking link juice

how do i adjust crawl errors? is this because the website has gone from being fairly large, with multiple pages and multiple links to having just a singular page?

[Esk247]

How are you recording your stats? Have you included the stat counter code in the new design? Are you recording/seeing your own hits the the site? And ones from the link in the thread?
Jay

all stats recorded by Analytics, code is correctly installed and working, i'm writing off any hits from today and concentrating on hits from keywords only.

the top search terms for finding my website a few weeks ago where 'website design in whitby' and 'hosting in whitby' looking at analytics.

[Coppock]

It could be more to do with off site or local attitude changes?
For instance, a competitor might have been beating you by an ad in a paper, trade magazine, maybe an event that went on?
It could be that you were doing something locally that got people wanting to search for hosting or web design in whitby?
It might even be that you get a lot of business through word of mouth without realising it - eg: someone saying "they're called esk247, do a google search for hosting in whitby and they're there" - and your customers or customer might have gone on holiday...

Just a thought anyhow!
Good luck
Jen

[OldWelshGuy]

how do i adjust crawl errors? is this because the website has gone from being fairly large, with multiple pages and multiple links to having just a singular page?

WHAT!!!!! :eek:

So you have dumped all the content from your site and are wondering why you are having issues? Are you serious now or is this a wind up?

Are you saying that you had a large site, but dumped it all and now have a single page site?

[Coppock]

Upon that note... google's cache is very different
and another question - why have "Hosted by Streamline (http://www.streamline.net/)" in the footer when you're advertising hosting?

Just a concern that customers could pick up on...

Jen

[Esk247]

WHAT!!!!! :eek:

So you have dumped all the content from your site and are wondering why you are having issues? Are you serious now or is this a wind up?

Are you saying that you had a large site, but dumped it all and now have a single page site?

would that greatly affect hits though? its not that a lot of content has been lost, apart from the portfolio, it's been condensed to a singular page. (customers have a seperate page for customer related information that is not crawled).

it's been a singular page for a few weeks, that knocked a few hits away but i wasn't too concerned, now i've made a few smaller alterations and tidied the single page up i've lost ALL hits.

but i'm still featured towards the top of google results for my keywords...i can understand not getting conversions on the current website as it's not informative enough...but i cannot understand why i have got ZERO hits for a 7 day period.

[OldWelshGuy]

When you make a change it doesn't affect anything until Googlebot comes along and spiders the new content. So you could have made a change a month ago, then last week you make another change, and co-incidently googlebot arrives for the new content.

The hierachy of a site is a MAJOR element of SEO, the page saturation is another strong element.
You have gone from having mutliple focused pages to what google will probably now see as a single holding page.

In short, you have not so much shot yourself in the foot, as blown the foot clean off.

You keep referring to 'my keywords' what do your analytics say about traffic and search referrers overall?

[Esk247]

Upon that note... google's cache is very different
and another question - why have "Hosted by Streamline (http://www.streamline.net/)" in the footer when you're advertising hosting?

Just a concern that customers could pick up on...

Jen

all hosting is done through streamline anyway, i get commission/referral through my customers or i just link to them anyway if people are looking for hosting themselves in which i dont get paid commission but i'm not too concerned about that.

no customer has ever mentioned that either. another interesting note to make.

[Esk247]

When you make a change it doesn't affect anything until Googlebot comes along and spiders the new content. So you could have made a change a month ago, then last week you make another change, and co-incidently googlebot arrives for the new content.

The hierachy of a site is a MAJOR element of SEO, the page saturation is another strong element.
You have gone from having mutliple focused pages to what google will probably now see as a single holding page.

In short, you have not so much shot yourself in the foot, as blown the foot clean off.

You keep referring to 'my keywords' what do your analytics say about traffic and search referrers overall?

even with multiple pages though, i ended up with people visiting my homepage and then leaving. when i checked with a client they said they didn't look for the other services i once offered, web hosting, seo, links to other sites and such..they went to my homepage and saw website design..then didn't look at anything else.

i also have such few hits in general on this particular website that it's hard to take a good cross section and say 'this works' and 'this doesn't work'.

apart from i've found that having a singular holding page seems to make things fall off a cliff...so i won't advise anyone to do such as i have :eek:

the home page contains a summary of all of the pages i had on the website before (bar the portfolio). i didn't wish to have an over crowded homepage (like the BT website and such).

Most hits are from Google, second is direct hits, 3rd is ukbf or dmoz.org.

top referring keywords are those that i've mentioned, thats what people have found my website on before.

[OldWelshGuy]

There are a lot of things to try and cover here but I will have a go :0

1. NEVER rely on the opinion of friends and clients, they are way too biased to be objective. No friend or relative will tell you that something they know you have worked hard over is crap!

2. never make wholesale changes to a website without spending a HUGE amount of time reasearching what your current visitors do.

3. Never change anything you can't change back.

Ok so what now? Well the logical thing is put it back, if change fails, put it back as it was. But the problem you face now is that you have lost google love.

a. Look back at your analytics and view what pages people viewed
b. look at the average page views (because currently you have dropped that to 1 and a bounce rate of 100%) :(
c. look at what backlinks your removed pages had.
d. take a long hard look at the traffic that converted via goals, and work on that.

I could probably post loads more but have tried to condense it to a workable plan.

[sirearl]

how do i adjust crawl errors? is this because the website has gone from being fairly large, with multiple pages and multiple links to having just a singular page?

Your not the messiah,your a very naughty boy.

Site size ,content ,structure has a lot to do with Ranking in the SERP's all those pages you have dumped were possibly bringing a higher percentage of traffic than your index page .

Put em back up quick IMHO.:eek:

Earl

[Esk247]

There are a lot of things to try and cover here but I will have a go :0

1. NEVER rely on the opinion of friends and clients, they are way too biased to be objective. No friend or relative will tell you that something they know you have worked hard over is crap!

2. never make wholesale changes to a website without spending a HUGE amount of time reasearching what your current visitors do.

3. Never change anything you can't change back.

Ok so what now? Well the logical thing is put it back, if change fails, put it back as it was. But the problem you face now is that you have lost google love.

a. Look back at your analytics and view what pages people viewed
b. look at the average page views (because currently you have dropped that to 1 and a bounce rate of 100%) :(
c. look at what backlinks your removed pages had.
d. take a long hard look at the traffic that converted via goals, and work on that.

I could probably post loads more but have tried to condense it to a workable plan.

thanking you kindly. i will put it back to how it was i think. its all backed up in case i had a disaster such as this.

like i say, the website hasnt ever generated that much in way of conversions and i'm not too concerned by this as i have other projects that are retail based on the way and they'll require some more thought after this little adventure.

[Esk247]

Your not the messiah,your a very naughty boy.

Site size ,content ,structure has a lot to do with Ranking in the SERP's all those pages you have dumped were possibly bringing a higher percentage of traffic than your index page .

Put em back up quick IMHO.:eek:

Earl

quite true, i'm a plum, i was trying to be clever....it failed :(

[sirearl]

quite true, i'm a plum, i was trying to be clever....it failed :(

Been there done it,still taking the pills.:|:)

Earl