Is this possible...

[xhale2007]

Hi guys.

I know my site is not up to a great standard, and i need alot of work doing.

I want to do the work myself, as i want to learn, but i dont know what to do. Is there people out there, who will basically direct me in what i need to do, write and where i need to put it?

:|

Cheers!

 

[RedEvo]

1. Keyword research

What - Develop a list of keywords used by people who would buy what you're selling.

How - Use the Google free keyword tool or something like Market Samurai which uses the Google data.

Why - So your site attracts people who are looking for what you're offering

Warning - Don't chase difficult phrases that you can't rank for. Check the strength of the competition (Market Samurai will help here).

2. Optimise your site's pages

What - Make sure you are putting keywords into your page title element, meta description and header elements (H1, H2 etc).

How - Depends how your website is built. If it's static then edit these elements for each page.

Why - Because search engines use these elements to 'understand' what your page is about.

Warning - Don't stuff these key elements with keywords, write for people, using keywords, not for search engines. Don't chase all your important key phrases on every page.

3. Build links to your site

What - Search engines view links as votes. Votes for your page make it more important in the eyes of the engines.

How - Good content will attract links. Article marketing can help. Ethical blog commenting can help. Asking for links from other relevant pages can help.

Warning - Link building is hard. Rubbish sites won't attract links and will rely on link spam. Google work hard to stop link spam from being effective (not very well but they are trying).

Now there's a ton more stuff to think (and worry) about but if you nail these basics and keep doing it you won't go far wrong.

d

 

[xhale2007]

Thanks for that info, very well laid out.

I already have a selection of keywords, which combined give rough (google adwords keyword tool) traffic per month of 2500 searches.

Im in the top 10 for a few of these, and have seen up to 3 searches per day for some of them. Most days i get one search from them. So i must be making slow progress.

I have started to optimise each catagorie of product, by adding content to the page. I use seo urls, keyword header tags and descriptions.

One thing im concerend about is having about 5 pack sizes of each product. meaning i have duplicate content on each of these pages. Is it possible to use my robot.txt to get these pages ignored? Meaning rather than google showing my item page, it will show the catagory page?

I hope that makes some sense

 

[fisicx]

Start here: http://www.webstyleguide.com/

Then read this: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html

Setting up an ecommerce site needs a lot of research as Red suggests. So just start googling for marketing, optimisation, html/css tutorials, oscommerce help, usability, accessibility and so on.

You really have two choices: spend a year or more getting all the necessary knowledge together or pay someone to do it for you. Either way it's going to take a while before you see some decent traffic unless you are prepared to pay for advertising.

It's a myth that an online store is a cheap way to make money. It takes just as much time, effort and money to be successful as it does to run a B&M business.

 

[xhale2007]

Thanks again fisicx

Im under no illusion as to how hard it is.

Its just a little business for me in my spare time. I work shifts in my full time employment, so i have so many spare hours to myself. I like a challenge like this, and its something ive always wanted to try.

At the min, im making in the region of 40-50 per month clear profit via ebay. Thats fine in my eyes, as its 1 mortgage payment nearly paid each year. Maybe im stupid for it, but it passes my time and im enjoying it.

The website is slowly growing in the rankings on google. Ive made tonnes of changes since i started back in january. Traffic hasnt really gained yet, but im not yet in the top 10 ranking for my "main" keywords yet.

Maybe i would be better investing in some PPC via adwords. Ive ran a few campaigns, but the terms i was using are way to expensive, most figures are at the similar cost to what my profit is for a typical sale.

 

[xhale2007]

Having just read about h tags, i have just re done the front page using them.

I have no body text on the site, do i need to use it? Would i be better changing it, or leaving the way its set out now?

 

[aidan1980]

Having just read about h tags, i have just re done the front page using them.

I have no body text on the site, do i need to use it? Would i be better changing it, or leaving the way its set out now?

stick your site addy up mate to let people have a look, there really is some great people on here that will help you out with good advice, I knew sod all about SEO before i joined up here but at least now i have a basic grasp of it

 

[xhale2007]

www.protectyourpiece.co.uk

 

[MASSEY]

www.protectyourpiece.co.uk

Scrap seo on that

You need a big ppc budget and offline advertising pointing traffic to the site,

You may be able to seo for certain types of brand names, but do not try for the word condoms,

Thats my outlook on it anyway,

 

[xhale2007]

Im certainly not going to attempt to target condoms. Im attempting to target Skins condoms, ID lubricant (although i may change this to ID lube), and basically all my ID range of product names, so id glide, id juicy etc etc

 

[Faevilangel]

Scrap seo on that

You need a big ppc budget and offline advertising pointing traffic to the site,

You may be able to seo for certain types of brand names, but do not try for the word condoms,

Thats my outlook on it anyway,

I'm with Massey here, you're going to need a HUGE budget for SEO / PPC for that site. Condoms / lubricants etc are big markets and they are full to the brim, you will need an expert company to do your seo and ppc. I wouldn't expect much change from £20k but it depends on what keywords you want to target etc.

 

[xhale2007]

Thanks for the input.

Im not after chasing the big boys, with deep pockets. If i can get to the top 3/5 for my keywords, which i think is quite possible, ill be happy.

My aim is to earn in the region of £100 clear profit per month from ebay and the website. At present im getting close to half way to that target, thats just via ebay.

I will be expanding my product range slowly each month. Im happy with how its going. I just want to get a little higher for my keywords ID lubricant and ID glide (currently 18th and 21st)

 

[Birmingham]

hi xhale, can you get high-res photos and 20-word descriptions for each of your products? if so, for how many products can you get this kind of content? if you have a database of a few hundred thousand pics & accompanying descriptions you could be rich in no time, but if no content, you might be in for a lot of hard work.

 

[joomlads07]

First of all try to frame keywords by looking at competitors & overall search volume. Generate content according to the keywords & update meta tags & keywords of the site. Once this is done you just follow simple SEO to boost your site traffic.