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SEO, what a headache!

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stonemania

stonemania

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Jan 13, 2011
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I've been working on the SEO of my e-commerce site for years now and still it doesn't rank all that well. Yes of course I have a few of my pages on page one of Google and a couple are right at the top, but I have literally hundreds of pages of text on my site so having just a handful of URL's on page one of Google, which I hasten to add tends to be the lower ranking keywords, isn't too impressive!

The one thing my site desperately lacks is decent back links and these hold a lot of clout. I simply don't have time to spend writing continuously on forums or writing blogs to try and get these and certainly don't want to buy back links as they are definitely frowned upon by Google and can end up getting you blacklisted, so is there anyone who can help with getting decent back links without charging the earth?

Thanks.
 
Maybe work with a PR company and get them to secure a few online product reviews for you? That might help, depending on who's doing the reviewing of course :)
 
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It sounds like you need to re-think your link building strategy.

A big site without links is like a nuclear submarine without submariners.

Forums and doing it "by hand" just is not cost-effective or time-effective for large websites.

If you read anything today read this on a definitive link building campaign

The idea is to change the way you think about link building from a trudging around on forums and directories into identifying the key players in your industry and coming up with creative solutions to getting backlinks from them.

Think big, then think bigger.
 
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I'm surprised that no one mentioned your website itself. While links are vital your website itself (on-page SEO) in my opinion is just as important and in the case of eCommerce software is lacking in many cases.

Which software are you using for your store? I'd be happy to take a look at your website and see which areas you can improve on from an on-page perspective.

The biggest on-page SEO problem for eCommerce sites (due to the software) is generally link structure. For example Zen cart by default has a bad link structure while Magento does a very good job of generating SEO friendly URLs.

EDIT: On-page was also mentioned by RedEvo ;)

Jack
 
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If you have optimised everything you can on page as well as:
  • Built a good following on social media
  • Added insightful comments to other blogs in your niche
  • Written some guest posts
  • Taken part in discussions in forums
Along with the many other channels you can promote your site/blog through then there is only one factor left to look at, and that's the quality of your content.

Could the problem be that you have too much quantity and not enough quality?
 
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Thanks everyone for all your replies which I've found very interesting.

My business is jewellery, it's a good business and makes me a decent living, but my business is jewellery and not SEO and I can't afford to spend such huge amounts of time or money on SEO. I have been working on my website since 2004, building it up to being an information portal as well as a site which sells jewellery, I believe the information to be interesting and of good quality and not just pages or boring, useless text. If I devoted as much time as is needed to promote a website according to Google's requirements, I wouldn't have time to run my business.

Google wants to promote the 'best websites' but in fact, what they're doing is promoting those who know the secrets of good SEO. Quality websites in their own field like mine, who offer a decent product, are interesting to read, aesthetically pleasing and which feature plenty of internal hyper links so users can jump from page to page if they choose, just dont' get a look in because I don't have the SEO 'skill' required to make my site count. This is further confirmed by the HUGE industry that has evolved in SEO, companies, SEO experts, link building experts, people who'll write your text for you, the list is endless and enormous.

In my humble opinion, on today's world wide web, it's all about SEO and not the product that's being sold or the 'basic' quality of a website. How a small company like mine with minimal financial backing is supposed to succeed when up against those who can afford to spend endless hours and money on SEO expertise and/or writing articles about their products as well as social networking etc, etc etc, is just beyond me.

Hence I'm back to where this all started, SEO, what a headache!
 
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on-page seo is about 15% of the story.

you need a miture if backlinks coming from different sources. dont stick with just one type: ie: blog links etc, try and mix it up a little
 
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oopps double post.

so 80-85% of your serps is "off page". good content is all very welll but its not going to beat the competition on content alone
 
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stonemania said:
Thanks everyone for all your replies which I've found very interesting.

My business is jewellery, it's a good business and makes me a decent living, but my business is jewellery and not SEO and I can't afford to spend such huge amounts of time or money on SEO.
Click to expand...

The interesting thing about considering the financial and time commitments of SEO is that in reality, it shouldn't "cost" you anything. By that I mean the return on whatever investment you put in, be it time or money, should be positive. Otherwise what's the point?

The cost issue isn't one of "I can't afford the monthly cost of an SEO resource" - it's more along the lines "I can't afford to take the risk that I've hired the wrong SEO resource." After all, if you use the right SEO resource and generate a positive return, cost becomes a moot point.

In the past I've found that framing the question that way helps businesses to clarify exactly what they're worried about with the wild-and-wooly world of SEO.

If you have a small initial risk tolerance, there is plenty that you can do, from some very basic link building to undertaking some SEO training to upskill yourself. However, you need to be willing to scale up and ride that momentum, once you have your first taste of success with it. If you keep scaling up a positive return, the sky is really the limit!

(I'm relatively new to the UK business forums, so I apologise in advance if I transgressed any rules here.)
 
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I think you could probably benefit from having an seo consultant go over what you want to achieve and what ypou want to pay and see if you can make some head way with it that way. Like you said your business is jewellery and so a lot of your time is spent running the business. Link building as you know takes time and so it might be time to look at outsourcing that part of the seo to a consultant.
 
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Hey Fraser, I agree totally with what you're saying and I have spent money with company's in the past who have got me nowhere and they weren't cheap!

Company's who promise the Earth and don't deliver are ten a penny and I've had my fingers burnt more than once. Finding someone you can really trust is like looking for a pin in a haystack. Talk is cheap and there are plenty of people out there who could sell ice to an eskimo. When looking for a company to use and who you can trust, is a total minefield, looking at company's who rank well on Google is a load of nonsense as if they can't rank well with their own website, what chance have they got with their clients', and with regards to reviews that you read online, as we all know, anyone can write that and there is no proof of their authenticity.

I know I sound pretty negative, but I've been learning about SEO since 2004, just a bit here and a bit there but I've learnt a lot yet with Google, the boundaries are forever changing. I'm a small business with limited rescources and money and i've learnt the hard way. I'm interested to hear the views of others like myself to see if anyone has really made their website hugely successful without the aid of an SEO related company or person working on their behalf.
 
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If SEO is not something you enjoy then it's probably best to outsource it. I know it will cost but if you find the right person/company, it will be an investment that more than pays for itself over time.
 
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Just found what I presume is your site. Few tips for you:-

1) You have way too much content on your home page
2) Conversely you have no content on your inner/category pages
3) You dont have anywhere near enough quality backlinks to compete
 
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maxh said:
From that it looks like 50% off site and 50% on site
Click to expand...

Off site in my opinion is 80 - 90% of how well your site ranks. Backlinks are king not content alone.

On site includes URL, internal links, architecture etc.. basically, anything you're in control of.
Click to expand...

The internal links dont pass much juice unless those pages have links themselves. Making large sites to cross link doesn't work well anymore. The pages need links to pass any decent internal link value.
 
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They'll be a few of us whom recognize and sympathize with your views, re: Google, seo, page 1 = lots of money.
The rest of us working hard and trying to provide decent content for visitors = find some other way = desperation, grey and black hat.
You say you make a 'decent living'... you may be doing yourself and the website a disservice by not allocating some of that 'decent living' on a experienced pro.

Have you looked at Tin's 1 on 1 service. Might be something worth a try.
 
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Thanks Republik99,

Regarding my text on the home page, that drives me crackers! Some tell me I have too much whilst others say keep it to the bare minimum. Some sites I see have none at all yet still rank pretty well.

As for text on my inner category pages, the category pages just feature items for sale and the text is with each item so not sure what you mean there.

Back links, yup, I'm very well aware I have no backlinks of any worth at all, that's the very reason I started this thread because I struggle to find them and I know how important they are! I don't as a rule have time to spend in forums or writing articles and have no intention of paying for dodgy backlinks, hence my lack of them, and I no know other way to get them which isn't going to take up huge amounts of time which unfortunately, I simply don't have.
 
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Hey trebor,

Yup, you're probably right, unfortunately at the moment though, there's no spare cash in the pot! I will have to succumb in the not too distant future though otherwise things will never change.

I just think the system 'sucks' in that you can't just have a decent website with good material and a quality product to score well, the site has to be manipulated by those in the know in order to really achieve anything at all.

It's the reason why SEO is such a massive market, because few small independant businesses can take on the might of Google and achieve anything unaided.
 
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SEOforBusiness said:
on-page seo is about 15% of the story.

you need a miture if backlinks coming from different sources. dont stick with just one type: ie: blog links etc, try and mix it up a little
Click to expand...



I'd agree with the percentage if you want to limit your website's reach & page relevance, authority and conversion etc..

We all know the importance of links for rankings but it is still only part of a much bigger story..

SEO is developing much further than just generating traffic.
 
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stonemania said:
Hey trebor,

Yup, you're probably right, unfortunately at the moment though, there's no spare cash in the pot! I will have to succumb in the not too distant future though otherwise things will never change.

I just think the system 'sucks' in that you can't just have a decent website with good material and a quality product to score well, the site has to be manipulated by those in the know in order to really achieve anything at all.

It's the reason why SEO is such a massive market, because few small independant businesses can take on the might of Google and achieve anything unaided.
Click to expand...

Please give Andy at www.mayhemnewmedia.co.uk a call and I'm sure he can give you some great pointers.We are using him and he's superb.
 
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SEOforBusiness said:
on-page seo is about 15% of the story.

you need a miture if backlinks coming from different sources. dont stick with just one type: ie: blog links etc, try and mix it up a little
Click to expand...

That may apply for people who don't know much about SEO,but I suspect the experts work on a 50/50 ratio.

although in fairness you simply can't have one without the other in general if you are after high competion areas.

Earl
 
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I'd say SEO is 100% onpage 100% offpage.. Without one there is no way you will rank for moderately competitive keywords.

I understand the 15% on 85% off. But this can only be the ratio if it's just 1-2 pages needing ranked. If you have a site with multiple pages you want ranked then onpage is at least 50% as you need to ensure juice flows throughout the site to the internal pages. You also need to ensure all of the internal pages have targeted content.
A play site of mine is ranking 1st page for most long tails in the logbook loan niche, the internal pages which are ranking are mainly due to juice flowing to them from the homepage which has had the most work and maybe 1 article submission.

There are obviously examples of not soo competitive keywords where either on or off page works alone - 'click here' is the obvious example. But in most cases they both work hand in hand.
 
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SEOforBusiness said:
on-page seo is about 15% of the story.
Click to expand...

Why do people come out with blanket statements like that? So, for every single keyword and every single page on the net (and irrespective of keyword competition) seo is 15% on-page? Absolute twaddle.

Experience and common sense suggests it's more to do with what content (and how much of it) you have to 'play with', and the keyword competition. There's absolutely shedloads of keywords that are doable to page 1 on content alone, there's shedloads of keywords doable to page 1 with the minimum of links, as long as the content has been worked accordingly.

I think the bottom line is, that beliefs are founded either on direct experience or what is read and, depending upon what (and where) you read, your beliefs follow suit. If you encounter persistent comments on forums/blogs etc that links are the 'be all and end all' then you're likely to take the view that content isn't worth much towards page 1 rankings.

I'm not saying that links are of less worth than content work, what I am saying is that content can attain a shedload more than most people understand (or believe) and as the link market has decidely been getting difficult to work the last few years, it makes sense to get to grips with content and to understand the nuances within it that can bring great rewards.

Like everything else in life, the devil is in the detail. Proper analysis of the keyword competition will dictate which 'tool' you need to use, content alone, content plus links - then just get on with it.
 
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RadiusBPO said:
I'd say SEO is 100% onpage 100% offpage.. Without one there is no way you will rank for moderately competitive keywords.
Click to expand...
So that's why Adobe ranks for 'click here' even over clickhere.com - 100% on page :p

**Any** site can be ranked on links alone... (though I don't recommend that!)

Just checked and clickhere.com has dropped way down...

ps Totally agree with Tin...
 
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Hi,

It is good to know that some of your pages are ranking well.
I think the problem is with the on page factors of your web pages.
If your on page factors are perfect then automatically your ranking will increase.
 
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At the end of the day seo should be looked sat like any job within a business. Okay you can outsource this like payroll or bookkeeping but its got for SME's to tip their toes in the water and try a bit of seo for your own site. You never know you may come to like it.
 
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stonemania said:
I've been working on the SEO of my e-commerce site for years now and still it doesn't rank all that well. Yes of course I have a few of my pages on page one of Google and a couple are right at the top, but I have literally hundreds of pages of text on my site so having just a handful of URL's on page one of Google, which I hasten to add tends to be the lower ranking keywords, isn't too impressive!

The one thing my site desperately lacks is decent back links and these hold a lot of clout. I simply don't have time to spend writing continuously on forums or writing blogs to try and get these and certainly don't want to buy back links as they are definitely frowned upon by Google and can end up getting you blacklisted, so is there anyone who can help with getting decent back links without charging the earth?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hi there
I do alot of seo and what works really well is video seo, the great thing with video is that it sticks out on the first page of google so you will get a massive c.t.r (click through rate) a great thing with a youtube video is you can have a link in the description pointing to your website, you can have a strong call to action in the video like

"want to find more about our services, product e.t.c then theres a link below this video"

this work really well.
If your interested then pm me.
 
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stonemania said:
The one thing my site desperately lacks is decent back links and these hold a lot of clout. I simply don't have time to spend writing continuously on forums or writing blogs to try and get these and certainly don't want to buy back links as they are definitely frowned upon by Google and can end up getting you blacklisted, so is there anyone who can help with getting decent back links without charging the earth?
Click to expand...

Simply put in one sentence - BACK LINKS ARE POINTLESS WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

Why any business is drawn to believe that backlinks are your main SEO objective is beyond me, maybe due to the massive amount of articles around the web talking about links driving pagerank - no different than democracy, it is the structure of your information that drives your positions. Votes, like on the web through links is the "ending" factor, not the Only factor. Focus on your content, and focus on your current visitors. Marketing and SEO is not for the faint of heart, it is a very indepth field of study no different than psychology requiring years of education and research before understanding the foundations of such a strong experience driven business model. SEO can be performed by anyone, but, it takes experience and understanding to do the know how involved with search engine optimization. Do NOT focus on linkbuilding, please, just focus on your website, the users, the content, and the information architecture.
 
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Hi,

Its really tough to get good back links for your campaign as it ask much hard work. Try to get links from good PR sites. This will surely help.
 
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