Need help with SEO . . .

[Andrew Crisp]

We instructed a company in India to do SEO work for us on our site www.compromiseagreement.org.uk (http://www.compromiseagreement.org.uk). I have to say they have done an excellent job and we rank well for our main key phrases.

My question is why, after nearly 12 months of SEO, are we not higher than www.compromiseagreements.co.uk (http://www.compromiseagreements.co.uk), who do not seem to do any SEO for their site (as far as I can make out)?

By far our most important keyphrases are 'compromise agreement' and 'compromise agreements'. This is a microsite which only sells one product.

In summary, my question is why a site that does not do SEO is higher than our site which has been subject to a lot of SEO.

[YODspica]

how long has your competitor site been in activity ? usually SEO also depends on trust, reliability, updates etc.

[Andrew Crisp]

I don't know how long they have been around. I know they have been around longer than our website. We launched our site in October 2007. They were already top of page 1 then.

Is there any way of finding out how long their website has been going?

[fisicx]

Well for staters they have been around since 2004 and google likes longevity (which could be why they have been awarded site links).

And they have got a better page structure than you and their on-page SEO appears to be a little better than yours.

And they may have one little inbound link from a respect site that gives them the necessary boost.

How do you know they haven't done any SEO? It lloks as if they have done a lot of work on the site.

[YODspica]

Is there any way of finding out how long their website has been going?

the simplest way is by emailing and asking them, and be creative on your approach :).

[Andrew Crisp]

How do you know they have been around since 2004?

By site links, do you mean the smaller links underneath the main search engine result? I would love to have those!

[fisicx]

Just seen your links page. Was this the result of your Indian SEO?

Get rid of this page and you might stand a chance of improving your ranking. I also see that you are listed in a US medical directory. Again, if this is the result of your outsourcing then it could well be compromising your ranking.

Incidentally, you ranking goes down away from your prime keywords. 'what is a compromise agreement' has you further down the page. And since longtail searches are the norm rather than the exception you could well be losing out on a large chunk of potential clients.

[fisicx]

How do you know they have been around since 2004?

By site links, do you mean the smaller links underneath the main search engine result? I would love to have those!

http://whois.domaintools.com/compromiseagreements.co.uk

http://whois.domaintools.com/compromiseagreements.org.uk

You will see from your listing that you don't even own the website. Somebody called Tracey has registered it in their name not yours.

The site links have to be earned. You have to be a round for a while, be popular and meet a whole bunch of secret google criteria.

[Andrew Crisp]

Well the links page was the result of my own SEO - link exchanges with relevant industries.

The External Directory was their work. I think they send link exchange requests all over the world.

I don't think we can get rid of it because we agreed a link exchange.

[Andrew Crisp]

[/URL]
[URL="http://whois.domaintools.com/compromiseagreements.org.uk"] (http://whois.domaintools.com/compromiseagreements.co.uk)
You will see from your listing that you don't even own the website. Somebody called Tracey has registered it in their name not yours.



I think you did a search on compromiseagreements.org.uk: not compromise agreement.org.uk.

As far as I know, we own it.

[fisicx]

Of course you can get rid of it. None of the links will be doing you any good so just delete the page.

If this is what they did in the name of SEO then you have been taken to the cleaners. Remove the page and wait for reindexing - you won't go down but you may go up.

<shakes head in disbelief>

Google warns agains this sort of thing in their guidelines. Unfortunately the Indioan SEO companies don't appear to read the guideleines

[fisicx]

I think you did a search on compromiseagreements.org.uk: not compromise agreement.org.uk.

As far as I know, we own it.

You is quite right - it's that pesky s that slipped in.

[Andrew Crisp]

The trouble is, a lot of the SEO methods that I have read about have limited relevance for this website. I have considered the Social Media stuff but compromise agreements are such a narrow specialism within employment law that there isn't really a community of people who are interested! Usually our clients have never heard of a compromise agreement until they receive one.

I don't think a compromise agreement blog would attract many visitors.

Not sure how we could get one way links, so reciprocal linking seemed like a good idea.

We also spent £700 in November 2008 on directory submissions (which are of course 1 way links) but this does not seem to have helped.

I appreciate what you say but our site has gone up the rankings since we instructed the SEO company in India. It just doesn't seem to have got any higher in the last 6 months.

[fisicx]

Just because you went up doesn't mean it was the SEO company - it could easily have been an natural google update.

Paid for directory submissions are only any good for traffic not for SEO.

If you really want to improve your ranking you need to do some on site SEO. There are all sorts of things you can do to improve the site. One of the simplest is to add more content. I'm sure there are loads of articles you could write, just think of all the questions your clients ask and write down your advice.

Take another look at your page titles and headers, anchor text and navigation. Are there any images that would be better as text? Have you covered all the thing people search for?

[peterjhale]

Take Fisicx's advice - all of it.

- on page - you can really do something there
- that link farm - it will do you no favours whatsoever and you have unforunately been ripped off, especially paying £700 for directory submissions *sigh*

There *is* so much you can do with that site to get it #1 easily

[fisicx]

Usually our clients have never heard of a compromise agreement until they receive one.

Missed that sentence first time round. If your clients don't know about it then being #1 for that term isn't much use to you.

What you should be targetting is help with unfair dismissal, redundancy, disputes and so on. Use the words an ex-employee would use. This is the lucrative niche you could dominate.

[JustOneUK]

Did you seek ANY advice before choosing aforementioned SEO in India? :|
Your on page SEO looks very poor to me, so bad in fact that I didn't even bother to look any further.

James.

[wood1e2]

I would definitly take the advice given... plus look at this w3c (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.compromiseagreement.org .uk%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0)

Not a huge amount of errors but always good to clean up your code.

When you say no one knows about your niche market, that is all the more reason to write a blog/articles/PR get yourself out there and make a market for your niche.

All those people who don't know what they need and you could be it...

[matt.chatterley]

Missed that sentence first time round. If your clients don't know about it then being #1 for that term isn't much use to you.

What you should be targetting is help with unfair dismissal, redundancy, disputes and so on. Use the words an ex-employee would use. This is the lucrative niche you could dominate.

Best advice in the thread.

I could easily get our site to top google for "incredible exploding pineapple".

It wouldn't do us a lot of good though, because our [potential] customers wouldn't be searching for it.

You need to sit down and work out how a customer might try to find a provider for your services - then work on those terms. Back to one of your comments above - this gives you scope for a blog, or articles - which lead into your services.

Start by expanding on "What is a compromise agreement?" - you only have a tiny section on a piece of information which you have already stated most customers require.

PS: Make the text bigger - I couldn't read it properly without my glasses and my eyesight isn't that bad (made me wonder if I needed more coffee!). You also don't seem to have your company registration number anywhere on the site?

[seomaster1]

Good discussion i learned lot of from above discussions...

[Astute Visions]

Andrew,

A few points to make. Search Engine Optimization aka SEO is not a 1 time process but requires continuous work and if you expect that after an initial work if things are left , they will remain the same then you are wrong.

There are others who will be blogging,linking,optimizing and if u sleep while they do this, you might be at the top now ,however wont be for long.

Targeting a phrase that is unknown makes no sense at all as you should target those phrases, which people you want coming to you, are looking for. I think "Fisicx" hit the nail on the head there as that is the biggest issue on your hand

Secondly how can u say someone did a good work when all you got was ranked for a keyphrase which no one uses :)

Anyways, spending quids doesnt help until the direction is proper. You need to first get assessment done on your target niche, your competitors and then based on the result you can proceed in a more targeted manner.

[Andrew Crisp]

OK. Just to be clear, when I said that most people had not heard of compromise agreements, I did not mean that nobody searches for it. Google Analytics and AdWords show that it is by far the most commonly used search term for this type of site. This is because the employee receives a compromise agreement from their employer and then types the phrase in to find out what it is. What I meant was that many people have not heard of them before they get one and there is no 'interest group' that would want to visit and revisit a blog.

I appreciate everyone's help with this though. It has certainly made me think.

[fisicx]

In which case you need to make sure the landing page is optimised to meet the visitor's needs. If they are searching to find out what it is then make sure the page tells them what a compromise agreement is.

But now consider the visitor. They have been given a CA, they want to know more, maybe get some advice. All your homepage does is sell you, it doesn't help the visitor and certainly doesn't tell them what a CA is.

What is your homepage bounce rate? What is the ratio of telephone calls to visitors?

Another point about your homepage. It looks like this is just a promo for Mason Bullock - it doens't give the impression that it is you they will be dealing with. If the logo was Andrew Crisp - Compromise Agreement Solicitor it would begin to build trust.

[Birmingham]

http://whois.domaintools.com/compromiseagreements.co.uk
http://web.archive.org/web/*/compromiseagreements.co.uk (since early 2004)

http://whois.domaintools.com/compromiseagreement.org.uk
http://web.archive.org/web/*/compromiseagreement.org.uk (since late 2007)

age is a big factor in trust. if adobe sets up a big site now, called yahoo.adobe.com .... even if it has higher pagerank and better code and content... it will not outrank yahoo.com for the search term "Yahoo" because Yahoo.com is so much older so Yahoo.com is automatically presumed to be the genuine "Yahoo".

spammers' sites get penalised with time... so age is a big trust factor... read more about it here (http://webmaster.bwdp.org.uk/seo)

[brainseo]

Check your website creation date and your competitor website creation date, If it is older than yours , it may be the issue to not give your website importance. If you work hard and make quality links, google will give importance to your webstie than your competitor.

[vipinsham]

Google likes simple website
1. content rich
2. no additional metas
3. domain name
4. domain age
5. uptime speed
6. hosting
7. onpage factors
8. and a good backend links, not in numbers but in quality.

[Ali-v-8]

i know this might be a stupid question but what is compromise agreements

[stuartdykes]

Basically you need to get a decent amount of good content. The main point is that the content should be helpful. The best way to do this is to find out what questions people have about your choosen topic.

I see you have some FAQs but really go to town on it. One good way of doing this is finding general law/business/employment forums and using the search function to search for compromise agreements.

Write or have written articles on these questions.

Even if the question is asked once, it is worth writing an article on it, if it generates one client it is worth it.

Next, on these forums, try to make a really good post that could be stickied or whatever, something that gives the impression you are the guy that knows about your chosen speciality. You know people with questions like this can go there, so you need to be there. If it gets stickied you have done well. Just put a link in your sig and that is as much as you can do.

To get seo links you have just got to put the work in finding sites that are relevant. The best way to get a link is to write an article for them, and this again adds to your credibilty.

Most webmasters will bite your head of for free content. So you need to find content sites, such as industry news sites whatever, not other lawyers sites.

I would forget directories, except local directories which sometimes appear high in local searches.

And btw you could have done amazing ppc with £700, that was money wasted, but it is a learning experience.

Finally, I dont know your business or how compromise agreements even work, but you might be better off targetting local keyword phrases.

People searching for employment lawyer coventry for example, as opposed to just employment lawyer will likely be a lot more relevant to you, especially if a face to face is needed, I dont know how you work things.

In the end, just learn this. India is a great place to get what I call grunt work, the real slog work done. You can also get highly educated people for a fraction of the price, but this is pretty unlikely.

Outsourcing to india is only a good idea if you can get someone to manage the whole thing, and you should know and trust that person.

It is a problem of two cultures clashing, they just have different expectations and standards.

Sometimes you find the diamond in the dirt. More often you get, to be blunt, shafted, paying for poor work and then ending up paying a british firm to do it anyway, and even that doesnt always work out!

You can be what or who you want on the internet...

[streetslocal]

hope this post dont looks as if I am completing my 15 posts.....
Yes it does and im reporting it to be on the safe side:D

[Ali-v-8]

Yes it does and im reporting it to be on the safe side:D

Yeah i agree, I dont think he even read my post and just went on about something totally different.

[davin.master]

hi,

it's depends on you that which part your are doing promote of your site as on page or off page.

[Junglepocket]

We also spent £700 in November 2008 on directory submissions (which are of course 1 way links) but this does not seem to have helped.


I nearly set the house on fire after reading this comment. My jaw dropped to the ground, and the cigarette I was smoking fell on the carpet.

£700 is wayyyyy to much to be paying for directory submissions. All you have paid someone to do is to enter your website details onto a directory which requires no skill whatsoever. I dont know how many submissions you paid for, but even if it was 7000 directories, it is very expensive for what it is. I could have submitted your site to 200 sites for less than $10 (I would have outsourced it to some Indians ironically enough).

As ever SEO is quite a subjective matter with plenty of opinions. Despite all the responses you have received, no one has pointed out something glaringly obvious and very basic SEO which needs fixing - your title tag.

Your title tag is: "Compromise Agreement Lawyers & Solicitors, Legal Advice on Compromise Agreements"

However, when you view the site in the search results, it displays: "Compromise Agreement Lawyers & Solicitors, Legal Advice on...."

This is because the title tag is too long. This is basic SEO 101 and your Indians have missed this completely.

Shorten the title tag to "Compromise Agreement Lawyers & Solicitors". This will make you title tag visible to people when they see your site in the search engines AND it will give more relevance to the keywords you are targetting. Having such a long title tag dilutes your chosen keywords. Choose either the singular or plural version for your keywords. Google is clever enough to recognise both, if your site is optimised properly.

You have been given a lot of advice from this thread, and I dont know if you have followed it or not. I can offer a list of suggestions that would help rank your site higher in the listings, but I'm not sure if you would follow them so it would be a waste of my finger energy. So instead, I will offer just one piece of advice. If you want more, then just let me know.