Am I on the right track -- still not seeing results in rank, traffic, etc.
-
I am a complete novice, but I tend to learn quickly.
My site is one year old, and I have very low traffic. I also rank poorly. I have recently learned a ton, and made some changes:
1. Put in meta no follow, no index tags on certain pages
2. Found and fixed some horrid content -- I had forgotten to finish certain pages (!) and they had been left up for months -- a good example is /California-homeschool.html basically said "Washington homeschool, blah, blah, blah" for about 8 months before I fixed it (!)
3. Added new content, changed the look and navigation of the site, added social media links and have been working to build those up (FB, Twitter, etc)
4. Started blogging regularly.
Those are the main things I have done.
I plan to continue to add content, tweak the navigation, and blog regularly. From what I can tell, link building should happen organically.
My question is: Am I on the right track?
Here is a link to my site: http://www.i-school-at-home.com
Am I missing anything -- there seems to be so much info out there. Because there is a time lag between making changes and seeing results, I just would love to know if I am on the right track, before I devote more time to this strategy.
What I would like to do is be the #1 homeschool website (long term goal) and generate revenue (eventually) from affiliate marketing and creating my own curriculum and resources.
Thank you!!!!!!
-
Thank you for the encouragement, Rob. I am really glad I posted this question, and I think I just have to chalk it up to "this is odd"
I have checked my site out at Google webmaster tools, and also at Bing's webmaster tools - and with SEO quake -- I do read a lot.
I can get traffic -- I see my own searches show up. But most days it is zero, other than that -- yesterday there were three other search visits, and I am pretty sure at least one was in response to this question.
It seems as though it's just "bad luck" -- my content needs to be better -- it isn't that bad, I don't think : )
I thought to as this question mostly to see if there weren't some glaring thing I missed about SEO -- but I think, in the end, that I do need to keep plugging away...
Thank you!!
-
That is unusual Wendy - that you have recieved no traffic to date
Have you checked the robots.txt file to see the Search robots are coming through ?
You can check https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools for any problems with the site access.
You seem to have the basic grasp of Seo and you have the ambition to learn and ask questions, it should not be too long before your on track - wish you good fortune with it
Rob
-
Thank you so much -- I actually rephrased my question here:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/rephrasing-my-question-i-have-no-search-traffic-i-would-love-some-feedback
The thing is, I have read the beginner's guide -- and do think I know the basics (basics!)
My main concern, which I didn't put in this question, is that I receive no search traffic -- none. It's odd. I know I have recently done a few things to improve my site, and I know it takes time, but I guess my question is better phrased as "I would really like some feedback, specific to my site"
I so appreciate the responses, too -- I have read, and read, and read about SEO for awhile, and this forum and SeoMoz in general, is the best I have seen, by far.
I very much appreciate this community -- Thank you!!!
-
I would start here SEOmoz beginners guide It will give you a basic understanding of what you should be doing.
-
I do have a site map and submit it regularly.
I have a sub-question -- this is kind of weird. So, I get zero search engine traffic -- zero...and I get some from direct and referral traffic.
Traditionally, my bounce rate was hovering around 50% ,which was okay with me.
Recently, and today is especially bad, I have received 13 visitors so far (it is 12:00 noon) and 11 of them are direct traffic, with 100% bounce rate...and I checked, and all of them are from Lebanon. That just kind of seems weird.
Any ideas? What am I doing wrong? My site isn't the best in the world, but it is over 100 pages of (I think) not too bad content...what's up?
-
Of course. SEO is basically about 2 things:
1. On site optimization
2. Off site optimization (link building)once you have optimized your site with good content and a great site structure, you should start promoting and marketing your website. I don't know if you have done it or not but I would make an site map and robot.txt file for the webstie. Once you finish the onsite, move on the marketing it and thats when youll start to see ranking improvements. While good content will drive links being built it doesnt hurt (well it can) to give your website a kick start. If you are ready to move on to the off site optimization I would start learning about link building which is the hard part.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Are slides how's etc the new Splash Pages?
[How did Moz know that my question was about this?!] I've just completed an audit of nearly 50 websites in the tourism industry and 90% had a slideshow, large image or video taking up more than the initial screen on the fairly large screened Chromebook that I'm using. I'm advising them all to ditch this and am often getting resistance from the site owners and their web developers. I know that these can be better optimized for page load speed, which is poor for most of these sites, especially on mobile devices; but from a usability standpoint, are these affective at drawing in users? Do users take the time to view these? Are they annoyed at always having to scroll down to see if there is anything else useful on the homepage? I think they are like the splash pages of the past: poor for usability and SEO. I've advised to at least make sure that the images are sized so the top of the page fits any screen (some of them do resize well for mobile devices, but maybe not laptops/desktops), include text with calls to action and click through to relevant content. I've been noting that they aren't media businesses selling images or videos, so they need to get their offerings to the top of the page so that users can see and engage more quickly. Anyone have any stats or experience on this? Thanks, Ann
Web Design | | anndonnelly0 -
Why is google still crawling my old website pages?
Why is google still looking at my old indexed pages and not my new index. ? Why are they crawling my old website links when none of them are available? How do I overcome these problems?
Web Design | | optimalspaces0 -
Website Traffic Drop After Switch
Hey guys, two weeks ago we switched over to the new website, however we've experienced about a 20% drop in Google Organic traffic and it does not appear we are getting indexed correctly by Google. On search results it's not using the meta description and the links still point to the old pages. Robots is fine We are using the same IP address Re-directs are in for the pages in question. Sitemap was submitted to Google in Webmaster tools What else do we need to do?
Web Design | | ScottOlson0 -
Is it important to keep your website home index page simple to rank better?
My website http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/ markets holiday cottages and it's grown from my own singular cottage into a small letting agency and I used to rank at best number 3 for the short tailed keywords like Whitby holiday cottages with its drop-down to position 10 on Google.co.uk. So this week I was looking for a UK business to help me improve my rankings and the first thing they said was my home page is detrimental with the listing too many conflicting info with it advertising all 12 properties on it. They suggested a door entry page into the site keeping it simple but when I run it through the analysing tool here on Moz for "Whitby holiday cottages" as an example it came out looking okay. I do the usual things of title tags and meta descriptions for my keywords etc any suggestions or advice would be very welcome thank you Alan
Web Design | | WhitbyHolidayCottages0 -
Traffic flow going through homepage, /default.aspx, and /index.htm - How do I fix this?
In the Google Analytics visitor flow section, most of my traffic is starting off on the homepage, but a significant portion somehow is being directed to /default.aspx, as well as a minor fraction at /index.htm - see the attached image for what this looks like. My questions are, why is this happening, is it negatively affecting the site, and should I just fix it through a filter in Analytics or consult IT? Navigating to the /default.aspx page in the address bar simply returns a blank screen. Any idea of what's going on here? The logo in the top left corner of the site directs to /index.htm, so I think I have that issue solved, but /default.aspx is definitely stumping me. The server currently runs on Apache, though I don't know if it always did. My standard method of simply Googling the problem didn't give me any definitive answers, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Q12QqpC.jpg
Web Design | | BD690 -
Responsive design and Google analytics mobile tracking codes?
Hi all, We are currently rebuilding a site using responsive design, however i have just had a thought. On another site where we have a mobile site under a sub-directory we utilise mobile tracking codes as we found that this was far more accurate for recording visits. On a responsive design site evidently all pages, desktop and mobile, will be under the same URL, yet the content will adjust to the screen size of the device. Should we also change the tracking code to be mobile code on the lower resolutions or would the same code be sufficient?
Web Design | | Sarbs0 -
Best Way to Re-Direct traffic from existing site to new site?
Good Morning, I have an existing site (http://goo.gl/QKkpi) running on a slow server. We decided to create a new site (http://goo.gl/XUH3f) with the intention of de-commissioning the first one. Both sites are on the same WMT account. What is the best way to permanently redirect any backlinks/traffic (all levels, from home page to product pages) from the old site to the new site (prior to shutting down the first one). Thanks a lot!
Web Design | | Prime850 -
Flash Effect on SEO Results
I suppose this is an open-ended question, at least for now, because I'm getting differing opinions on whether Flash inhibits optimum SEO results. I don't know the answer but I've just started to do some research and it seems this would be a good discussion based on your experience. I look forward to your thoughts. Thank you.
Web Design | | karlseidel0