Re-building my ranking

[Green Jelly]

I have recently updated my website and changed my URL from jellyonthenet.co.uk to greenjellyshop.co.uk (changed for a number of reasons after weighing up the pros and cons).

The new site is live and although the old URL directs to the new one my google ranking has taken a hit (as expected - not a surprise - it was one of the cons).

I am working through my existing in bound links and requesting changes to the web address, building more links (relevant ones ideally), ensuring the website's content is relevant with lots of keyword rich text (ongoing process), planning a blog, ramping up my PR and building my Facebook and Twitter fan base.

In your expert opinions is there anything else I should be doing either as a priority or further down the list?

Any comments on the approach would be appreciated.

 

[Babybots]

No comments on the re-building of your ranking I'm afraid.

Just wanted to ask how things were going in general??


Steve

 

[fisicx]

Work on the site. Loads of thing you can do to improve your ranking for your product range. For example:

Page title:Cost Effective Cotton Terry Reusable Nappies - Green Jelly

H1roduct Code: COT813 Cotton Terry Squares

What keywords are you hoping to target: Cost Effective or Product Code?

It's certainly not 'Reusable nappies' as these don't feature in the H1, categories, breadcrumbs and are hidden away in the blurb.

The blog, PR, twitter and facebook aren't going to help your ranking for the actual products. Might be good for other things but not to propel you up the rankings.

 

[Nenad]

before the move you were supposed to redirect all the urls to your new domain. (not just domain but every single url) maybe it's still not too late so just give it a try.

(On your old domain)if you have a list of your old urls create a rule in .htaccess to forward each url to its corresponding url on your new domain

 

[Green Jelly]

Hi Nenad,
Thanks for the suggestion. I did however request that all the URLs were redirected to relevant pages on the new site and the testing I performed on launch confirmed this. I think the age of my new site and possibly the fact that links have my old web address? is affecting the position - however I am happy to be corrected....
Sharon

 

[Green Jelly]

Fisicx, not quite sure what you mean here as reusable nappies is in the categories and breadcrumbs and title. Also I was under the impression that links from a blog to pages on my site plus PR with anchor links were good for SEO - is this not the case?

 

[Green Jelly]

No comments on the re-building of your ranking I'm afraid.

Just wanted to ask how things were going in general??


Steve

Hi Steve,
Good thanks - and you guys?
Sharon

 

[Babybots]

Hi Sharon,

Going really well at the moment, just hope it keeps going that way

Just had a quick look at your new site, looks very nice

Steve

 

[fisicx]

Fisicx, not quite sure what you mean here as reusable nappies is in the categories and breadcrumbs and title. Also I was under the impression that links from a blog to pages on my site plus PR with anchor links were good for SEO - is this not the case?

Look at this page: http://www.greenjellyshop.co.uk/Reu...oth-nappies/Cotton-Terry-Squares/prod_11.html
Reusable nappies is 4 levels up in the breadcrumbs and categories. It needs to be on the page and in the title. The first words in your page title are 'cost effective'. Google will consider these to be the most important and look for supporting content on the page.

Blogs can be good for traffic but their SEO value is limited. If you are hosting it yourself then you get all the benefits. If you are hosting offsite then don't expect G to take much notice as it will only be seen a bit of self promo.

 

[Green Jelly]

Fisicx - I see what you mean here now and I guess it can be changed pretty easily.

 

[TradeSparq]

Are you sure the redirect from your old site is a 301 redirect?

 

[mattsaw]

If I was going to optimise a page on the site for reusable nappies I would choose this one,

http://www.greenjellyshop.co.uk/shop/reusable-nappies-amp-accessories/cat_1.html

The page optimisation here could be improved,

Good
- Term in the title
- Term is in the URL
- In H2 tag

Bad
- Missing from H1 tag
- Missing from image alt attributes
- Missing from meta description tag (not really a ranking factor but it'll help with CTR)

Why is the page heading an image on that page? It would be far better to have these as text.

 

[mattsaw]

Are you sure the redirect from your old site is a 301 redirect?

Yes I checked, it's fine

 

Bad mistake you should have run the new site alongside the old one.

added to which your URL has nothing to do with your product so there was nothing to gain changing URL

Earl

 

[Green Jelly]

Mattsaw - thanks for the comments. I am using CubeCart with a custom SEO module from my web developer and have been using it about a month and still in the steep learning curve phase. I will take the comments back to him and look at correcting the 'bad' points across the site. Does the meta description not include the keyword 'reusable nappies'? I intended it to - I have however not populated the keywords fields as I believe this are not wholly relevant anymore. Apologies for my naivety - how would I go about adding alt attibutes to images?

Images vs text? A design vs SEO conflict??

Sir Earl thanks but already done....

 

[mattsaw]

Does the meta description not include the keyword 'reusable nappies'? I intended it to - I have however not populated the keywords fields as I believe this are not wholly relevant anymore.

You're correct, meta description and keywords aren't sued for ranking purposes, but your meta description is usually used as the snippet on the search results page. If you include your keyword within a sales orientated paragraph with a call to action then you can have a positive effect on your click-through-rate, so still well worth doing.

how would I go about adding alt attibutes to images?

Each image on the site should have an alt attribute associated with it which is used for browsers for the visually impared. Search engines also pay a lot of attention to these, many believe them to be a very important factor in search rankings, so again its worth including your keyword in the description of a relevant image. You'll almost certainly have the ability to add these via the admin. Your developer should be able to let you know how to do this.

 

[mattsaw]

Why is the page heading an image on that page? It would be far better to have these as text.

Sorry, I don't think I clarified this enough, should read,

Why is the page heading an image on that page? It would be far better to have these as text and defined as the H1 tag on the page.

 

[mattsaw]

For anyone moving sites - changing URLs or domains, it is possible if done correctly to migrate without a fall in rankings - and certainly not any permanant drop. I recommend having a read of this guide which covers just about everything you'll need to know.

http://seogadget.co.uk/surviving-seo-site-migration/