Any good SEO advice you could give me?

[Bizicycle]

I am currently trying to help out a small local business. They are in the accomodation industry with a small guest house and wish to try get a better presence within search engines. As a small business they do not have the budget to pay for full professional SEO every month and my experience is limited to suggesting developing keywords within the meta tags.

I was looking to try find out if anyone on here could give me any helpful suggestions on how to get their site a stronger pressence in search engines with regards to searches for the town name and surrounding businesses.

 

[Red Eye Media]

Link building and good content will do the trick.

 

[Bizicycle]

Link building and good content will do the trick.

I think they have tried the whole link building process with surrounding businesses but after adding the other business info as a recommendation on their site some of the other companies have stalled in adding the guest house link within their sites.

Hopefully eventually all that will be amended, I think the content part of it is basically just promotional detail about the guest house, I don't think it's been updated since the launch of the site. I have read before that updating content is something that benifits seo, is this something that I could suggest to them?

 

[Subbynet]

Content Content Content. If you concentrate on Content, everything else will fall into place. (Well mostly )

Get a blog set-up, and write about the guest house, maybe about local attractions, upcoming events in the area, special guests etc...

 

[Bizicycle]

Content Content Content. If you concentrate on Content, everything else will fall into place. (Well mostly )

Get a blog set-up, and write about the guest house, maybe about local attractions, upcoming events in the area, special guests etc...

That's a great help Martin, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Bizicycle]

Would the main content of the website containing basic information about the premises and the surrounding area, activities etc be suffice?

 

[nass]

Unless they're in an incredibly competetive locale, it should just be a matter of optimising their homepage for the search "guest house placename" along with obtaining a few backlinks

 

[Subbynet]

Would the main content of the website containing basic information about the premises and the surrounding area, activities etc be suffice?

I'd say its a start, but I wouldn't limit myself... Its a on-going job adding content.

Here's my nugget about SEO, and search engines in general. They work on Words, so the more Words you have, the more chance the SE has on picking you for a result.

Its as simple as that.

So I'd never "limit" the amount of information you have, but likewise you want it to be relevant for both the SE's and visitors.

You'd be better doing a survey to try find out what information people need to know, but;

Breakfasts (or dinners) - What time, what types of food? Any veggie options?
Holiday Closing Times - Are you open over Christmas and New Years for example?
Disabled Access - Do you provide rooms suitable for disabled people.
Do you allow pets? (Most don't, but some do)
Which and how far are the closest cities/towns to you.
Has the guest house won any awards?
What about Car Parking - or traveling by bus or train.
Do you have a policy on Children staying? and likewise any facilities for children? (Play area in the garden for example)
Group Bookings - any discounts etc?

That's just a few examples...

 

[Tin]

Hi Bizicycle

I've moved this from IT & Internet to our SEO forum, you may get more help.

Ray

 

[JustOneUK]

Put 'Town Name Accommodation' or 'Town Name Guest House' in H1 tags on the site, and in the TITLE tag.

It's hard to say without seeing the site. You can PM it to me if you like

regards
James.

 

[aip08]

As justone said above, make sure you have the main keywords in the H1 & title tags, that the tags are different for each page, each page is based around a keyword or keyword phrase (eg the keyword phrase is hotels in blackpool, then the page is called hotels-in-blackpool.html, the h1 tag is hotels in blackpool, the title tag is hotels in blackpool, & the content uses the phrase hotel in blackpool a few times, along with other synonyms & related words).

Make sure you have in body links to the different pages using the keywords as the anchor text.

Have a read & hopefully get some ideas: ampersat-ip.com

 

[Birmingham]

bizicycle, if you let me know the website address i can do a proper review for you. otherwise we're shooting in the dark

the comments about content, content, content is great for the long term but it's unlikely to get you ranking top for competitive search terms any time soon. offsite seo (link building) may also be needed.

 

[Kneoteric_eSolutions]

Would the main content of the website containing basic information about the premises and the surrounding area, activities etc be suffice?

That should be sufficient. Optimizing for keywords with the geographic locater (name of the town) should do the trick.

Have they done link by using the same anchor text as the targeted keywords and have they obtained links that are thematically relevant (for travel related domain)?

It is well understood that frequent changes in the website content is unrealistic and therefore having a blog would be a great way of adding fresh content periodically.

Trying submitting the website to relevant directories and relevant sections. There are many more ways to get you Online marketing going and a little research on your end would help you a lot.

 

[Bizicycle]

Thanks for all the helpful replies and special thanks to those of you who had PM'd me with the offers to take a look and help out.

It's a stressful subject these days with so many businesses becoming so Google obsessed Thanks again all!

 

[cathedralimp73]

Link building is good as long as it is link building with websites fairly relevant to your own.

Also optimise each page title so it uses the H1 header tag from that particular page. Never use the same page title for each page as this won't work as effectively.

Do some research using free online keyword research facility and see what are the most popular search terms for the type of content you produce. When you know what these keyword terms are then try to use them fairly often within the main content. Page content shouldn't really be more than 500 words and keywords should make up between 2% and 5% of the number of words.

If you have any questions or don't understand any of the above just let me know!

John

 

[Mike Seddon]

I'm sure you've already had some great help from the people here however you can never have enough help, so here's some free SEO training

Cheers
Mike

 

If your hitting local you want a title like :

<TITLE>WHITSTABLE HOTELS HERNE BAY HOTEL WHITSTABLE KENT CHEAP B B BED AND BREAKFAST KENT PUBS GUEST HOUSES HOTELS B&B ACCOMMODATION Windy Ridge Pubs Inns in Kent, Self Catering accommodation in Kent and tourist attractions to visit</TITLE>

But change the place names to your area.

Earl

 

[Codefixer]

I'd get the site listed on the Google Local Business results if it isn't done so already https://www.google.com/local/add/

Include images, get customer reviews, add a video.

 

[NMHancock]

...you want a title like :<TITLE>WHITSTABLE HOTELS HERNE BAY HOTEL WHITSTABLE KENT CHEAP B B BED AND BREAKFAST KENT PUBS GUEST HOUSES HOTELS B&B ACCOMMODATION Windy Ridge Pubs Inns in Kent, Self Catering accommodation in Kent and tourist attractions to visit</TITLE>...

That has to be one of the longest titles (behind downsouth's yesterday) that i have ever seen! so much for keyword density in page titles!

 

[downsouth]

leave me out of it!!!

In all honesty most people who have title's this sort of length or other SEO 'blunders' are only going on what we've either seen or been told previously, with so many SEO type bods around these days who do you actually listen to and more to the point who is correct

You'll be the first to admit that SEO techniques and website construction has changed immensly over the years

 

[HelenSH]

I joined some forums of interest to me, namely equestrian when I first started photography, I advertised on those who allowed links in sigs and get quite a bit of traffic, think it does help SEO but I also got quite a lot of work from members pm'ing me, but I had to take part not just sit and only post once a month.

Not sure its quite on topic but might help

 

leave me out of it!!!

In all honesty most people who have title's this sort of length or other SEO 'blunders'

Well I am knocking on a bit so you can't expect perfection.

Here's another one of my blunders,which the old bank manager gets real upset with.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=e...7,GGLG:en&q=volkswagen+parts&btnG=Search&meta=

Earl

 

[downsouth]

exactly the point Sirearl, who says long titles aren't correct if it works for you then continue, If it brings in the cash then even better.

SEO by the looks of it can be a FT job for a small business person trying to keep up with all the latest trends and advice.

How many people can actually spend volumes of time on this subject when theres actually business work to be done, you could become bogged down in SEO work to the detriment of other aspects of your business.

This is a discussionary point rather than pointing the finger at the SEO's amongst us for who's job SEO is actually a FT business

 

[NMHancock]

...How many people can actually spend volumes of time on this subject when theres actually business work to be done, you could become bogged down in SEO work to the detriment of other aspects of your business....

Spot on! SEO is very important, but it is in no means what is going to make or break your business! SEO should be spontaneous, if you find something interesting and useful add it to your website and watch the links come in. When you start chasing rankings you will be wasting valuable time spent elsewhere. Set time aside for SEO each week but do not make it 100% of your weekly efforts

Sorry about quoting your page title downsouth!

Neil M Hancock

 

[acee]

Search engine positions for the accommodation industry are fiercely competitive. You're competing against companies often employing a dedicated link aquisition team, because that is all that matters.

Don't focus on the obvious keyword combo's. Look for less competitve searches relating to hotels near local attractions or something similar, and then optimise the home page of the site for that search and a few variations.

Channel your efforts into link aquisition, not creating content. Unless your subject matter is totally unique, content will rarely attract visitors. Content is only useful after visitors arrive, and to get them there you need as many good quality links as possible. Just make the home page convincing enough to make other websites consider linking to you. Submit your clients website and I will place them on a relevant page in my Travel Directory.

Go back to looking for local businesses using the name of the town in their pages to trade links with.

 

[jonjon10]

Nowadays just getting a link from another website is not good enough. Links should be;
1. From sites with a high google ranking
2. From sites with few links (the more links the site has e.g. directories, the less effective the link is)
3. Similar content e.g. don't link to a mortgage lender
4. Try not to reciprocate links (there is a theroy that google thinks less of them). if you have to make sure the links are on different pages not the same ones

If you can get a a link with these qualities they can be 20 time more effective than "weak" links. There is a whole science behind link building now, these points are just the tip of the iceberg