Seo Explain Please

[little_stork]

ok so could someone explain in simple non teckie language how SEO works i had a look at baby gifts and in not there. Also is there anyway i can improve my site to get more traffic? welsh baby gifts and slogan stuff i have a ranking for but i would also like to go under welsh gifts.

Is it worth me doing this ? and how much does it cost?
Thanks Tracey

[multilingual]

'baby gifts' is a very competitive phrase with a lot of competition, so you should really be looking for niche phrases that, although searched for by fewer people, will give you a better chance of being found.

You can read more here:

http://www.aspect7.co.uk/seo.html

It's a complicated process, but SEO starts with an understanding of what you want to do and who you want to attract.

It's certainly worth doing, but there are a lot of people who will gladly take your money and not deliver.

Drop me a PM if you need any help.

JB

[little_stork]

thanks multi have pm'd you

[sirearl]

Tracey as Multilingual states you must first decide what key words you want to be found for.

then you need to research whether people actualy search for those terms .using a program like http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/ which covers al the major engines.

If you wish to employ a pro SEO then the best way to decide on a good one is from recommendations ,allied to there actual search engine results they have optained.

The company cited above although there information is pretty acurate ,there one assumed best result is not so good being in an area with quite small competition .

The other avenue open to you is PPC Steve Gibson and IBrian seem to be fairly well up in this area.

Earl

[little_stork]

many thanks earl will have a look and do some homework

[Tin]

ok so could someone explain in simple non teckie language how SEO works i had a look at baby gifts and in not there. Also is there anyway i can improve my site to get more traffic? welsh baby gifts and slogan stuff i have a ranking for but i would also like to go under welsh gifts.

Is it worth me doing this ? and how much does it cost?
Thanks Tracey

Hi Tracey

Hopefully I'll try and address all your points

SEO (search engine optimisation) is all about manipulating a web page/web site in order to try to get as high an organic ranking/position on the main search engines (Google being the one most folk focus on). The organic rankings which form the main area of Google's search results pages are the ones most visitors to Google click on so it's really essential if you wish to sell online to be featured in these organic rankings. PPC (Pay per Click) rankings are 'paid for' and can be found at the very top of the organic ranking (in the blue shaded area) then continuing down the right hand side of Google's page.

Coming back to seo, there's 2 basic methods which are used to get started on the ranking trail.
1. On page/site seo
2. Off page seo (link building)

1a; On page seo is simply the playing around with words (both keywords & non keywords) in certain areas of the page. Some of these areas will be readily visible to you like any headers that are used, page text etc. Other areas will be 'out of the way a bit' like the Title element, meta description, alt tags. Depending on the competion in any market sector it can be a simple short lived excercise of working words into a page to get page 1 rankings, in more competitive markets it'll take far more time to make the words work at their most efficient. In essence, there's less time involved in playing with the words in easy market sectors than hard ones. Costs are proportional.

2a; Off page/site seo is getting links which point to your website. There's lots of debate on how to go about this exercise but generally it's best to get 'one way links' (links into your site without you having to link back to the other site, otherwise known as reciprocal links). Links from sites who have a 'connection' to the content of your own site ie; sites that are in the same or very similar market sector (baby gifts) are preferable. Links that let you use different text (anchor text) to link to your site are very helpful too and obviously, there are ways to make the most out of these for your own benefit. Paid for links can be a good option if you need them. This is where you pay someone to provide links to your site on your behalf. Done cleverly, it can be very beneficial, done badly it's a complete waste of money and can do you real harm.

As Earl has pointed out, make sure you do your keywords research as targeting the wrong words will be a pointless mistake. Get your head around your market sector by looking at KeywordDiscovery or take a look at the source code of some of the top websites in your market and see what they think are the words to target. Be careful you don't get lost doing this or thrown off track, it's important you run with the best ones.

If after checking you decide that 'baby gifts' is your main keyphrase then you're very likely to need to pull the phrase in over a number of your core pages (in other words, it'll take more than one page themed to the phrase to capture the phrase so that your home page shows when someone types it into the search engine). Hope that last bit made sense.:)

Welsh gifts is much easier, you'll likely find this is very dooable and requires less work.

Your site's not too bad, there's some text knocking about on pages so I don't see much preventing you making the most of it. Your url's could be more meaningful instead of...

viewproduct.php?prod=9

it could look like...

welsh-dragon-shoes.html

As far as prices go, you could see anything from £50 - thousands. Don't assume the more you pay, the better job you'll get, or vice versa. There's plenty of good and bad in the seo industry so you will need to be careful but it's just the same if you needed a plumber or roofer. If you go down the route of employing an seo company then as Sirearl said the best way is to seek recommendations and to ensure that you have a good look at their previous results.

On that note, when looking at the competition of a keyword or phrase, be sure to insert an opening speech mark at the beginning of the search term. Often the competition is not as impressive as it may first appear.

For example on first glance baby gifts - shows competition of just over 1 million on a Google UK search whereas by placing a single opening speech mark at the very start of the search like this "baby gifts, the results shown
displays a more reliable figure of 365, 000 pages that may be targeting the phrase so that's reasonable competition.

On the other hand, the 2 words 'welsh gifts' show on a UK search 697,000 pages competing but using a speech mark just 10,100 pages are shown. As an indicator of competition never use a broad search phrase, it's too unreliable.

If you believe this site (or trying to make a living online) is your destiny then it'd be sensible for you to begin to learn it for yourself assuming you've the time. On that note, I'd be happy to give you an hours free advice at any time if you feel it may be helpful.

[An Oasis]

...On that note, I'd be happy to give you an hours free advice at any time if you feel it may be helpful.

Wow Tracey have you got your running shoes on?

[little_stork]

well i used to be in the army so i reckon i could keep up lol
WoW tin thanks for the info. I would love to take you up on your offer. How do i go about changing the url's?

Many thanks
Tracey

[RedEvo]

I'd go and grab the free white papers from www.seomoz.org to get a good in depth SEO overview (45 pages). We've got a short sharp (not in depth) overview on our site also (4 pages).

d

[multilingual]

The company cited above although there information is pretty acurate ,there one assumed best result is not so good being in an area with quite small competition .



Cheers Earl, that's my company :)

We targeted that phrase because there is less competition.

90% of SEO (in my modest opinion) is finding those keyphrases that are searched for, yet easy to optimise for.

In other words - a few clicks on a lot of words is easier to achieve than a lot of clicks on a few words.

I don't have the budget, or the time, to fight for the main keyphrases in our industry, so we spread our SEO campaign across dozens of less competitive terms to generate interest.

It works for me.

JB

[sirearl]

Cheers Earl, that's my company :)

We targeted that phrase because there is less competition.

90% of SEO (in my modest opinion) is finding those keyphrases that are searched for, yet easy to optimise for.

In other words - a few clicks on a lot of words is easier to achieve than a lot of clicks on a few words.

I don't have the budget, or the time, to fight for the main keyphrases in our industry, so we spread our SEO campaign across dozens of less competitive terms to generate interest.

It works for me.

JB

oops well I ain't groveling ( much:( ) but I absolutly agree with you.I always try to access a projects likely success on the SE before I take it on.

I have no chance of getting a No 1 for "estate agents" so I would not try( well maybe a slight chance :) )

No my philosophy is always be a big fish in a small pool as far as SE go,cause if you ain't on page one your stuffed and the bottom line is how much is in the kitty at the end of the week ,no matter what tatics you use:)

Blimey look what I have to do to retain at least one friend on this bloody forum !!:(

[multilingual]

I have no chance of getting a No 1 for "estate agents" so I would not try( well maybe a slight chance :) )

My philosophy is always be a big fish in a small pool

Couldn't agree more

Now get out of my pool! :)

JB

[sirearl]

Couldn't agree more

Now get out of my pool! :)

JB

What would I want to get in your piddly little pool for .I have to swim in the ocean with all the other sharks .:)

[Tin]

Hi Tracey,

Regarding the changing of the url's it needs to be your web designers who change these. They need to be a bit more search engine friendly and as I stated above it is a good idea to put each product name in rather than just viewproduct which is meaningless.

I notice that your web designer offers seo services, have you thought of returning to them for seo help?

Please PM me when you get a chance and we'll organise a chat.

[SteveGibson]

The other avenue open to you is PPC Steve Gibbon and IBrian seem to be fairly well up in this area.

That's Gibson, I'm not a bloody monkey! :D

Some really good advice on here from JB, Tin and Earl, IMO.

Steve

[sirearl]

That's Gibson, I'm not a bloody monkey! :D

Some really good advice on here from JB, Tin and Earl, IMO.

Steve

Profound apologies Steve have corrected ,no disrespect meant,but me pet Baboon ran orf with me glasses :D

[little_stork]

thanks for the advice i will look into finding out more
Tracey

[dan_moore]

The URLs can be re-written using defined rules with mod-rewrite on Apache.

Tweaking your page copy and wording is a good idea - all done directly through the CMS. Incidentally you can also update the browser title, meta descriptions and meta keywords directly through the CMS (saves paying someone to do it for you ;) )

Dan

[little_stork]

thanks dan:)

[Lucy McIntyre]

Does anyone know why my site is doing so badly in google? garenberg-garden-offices.com for garden office /s?

[sirearl]

Does anyone know why my site is doing so badly in google? garenberg-garden-offices.com for garden office /s?

Lots of reasons it needs SEO for 1 and google hates anyone from Manchester :)