Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thumbs up for Ben. I agree wholeheartedly.

These forums are a fantastic place to learn SEO, I think I've learnt the most from interacting on here. Keep asking questions, respond to others and learn, learn, learn.

As for books, I would start with these if you haven't already:

1. http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO-Secrets/dp/0470554185/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1339725028&sr=8-7
2. http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Eric-Enge/dp/1449304214/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1339725028&sr=8-11

Subscribe to all the best blogs/sites out there and read constantly. Some of my favourites include:

1. http://www.seomoz.org/blog
2. http://www.distilled.net/blog/
3. http://www.rosshudgens.com/
4. http://searchengineland.com/
5. http://mashable.com/follow/topics/SEO/
6. http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog

Also, if you don't already, get active on G+. Like Ben said, the best SEOs respond to queries, and I find that G+ is the best place to interact with the higher level SEOs.

Thanks,

Brad

As long as the targeted phrase is included in the page title and close to the beginning of the title, that's fine.

I would lean towards the 2nd page title, but that particular title looks a bit spammy/unreadable (remember, your page title isn't just for SEO, it's to influence people in the SERPs and get higher click throughs). Try something like:

Buy Silver Bullion & Silver Bars Securely | Company Name

Hi,

Overall the design of your site looks quite nice, so well done there. My tips would be:

1. Upon looking at your link profile at http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.babskibaby.com you have very few links coming in and from only 15 domains. A few of these look like spammy comment type links so I'd concentrate first and foremost on gaining links from reputable sources. Try mum type forums, blogs and sites. Perhaps donate some of your products to a reputable mummy blogger in exchange for an honest review and a few links? We do this in the cookware niche and it works wonders.
2. I notice you have FB, Twitter and Pinterest pages so that's good. I'd also add a Google Plus page. Spend less than an hour on it and you have yourself a nice looking page with some links back to your site. Add the icon next to other social media icons in your header.
3. Your blog seems to be focused all around your site. The aim of it should be to give hints and tips in your niche. Try blogging about other topics that mums/dads would relate to. Write great content that deserves to be shared and the links will come.
4. Your page titles look way too spammy and long. E.g. for the Baby Sheepskin Boots page the page title is "Baby Sheepskin Boots, Sheepskin Baby Boots, Baby Sheepskin Booties | Merrry Berries, Inch Blue, Skibz, Beauty And The Bib". It should be less than 70 characters and focus on just 1-2 key terms. Also, your content is pretty light on. You only have 2 lines of text on that page, and you can tell it's written for Google and not the user. Add more useful content.

Hope that helps!

I would agree with everything that danatanseo stated regarding H2 and H3 tags. However, I would never use multiple H1 tags.

As stated in SEOmoz's own on page optimisation reports:

"Best practices for both SEO and accessibility require only a single H1 tag. The H1 is meant to be the page's headline, and thus, multiple H1s are confusing. Consider employing H2, H3 or CSS styles to achieve the same results with text visualization."

Hope this helps!

Debal this is a very broad question. I suggest you start with a little reading if you haven't done so already:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-seo-version-two

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links (overview in link building, in other words the primary offpage technique for improving rankings)

Remember, off page and on page have to go hand in hand. You should aim to do both, not just offpage.

Good luck!

Randy those two sites are VERY well known brands - they can get away with less content to a certain extent (they're going to get a lot of natural links easily). I agree with EGOL, text is very important. Add some content about what your site is about, deep links to some key pages on your site, blog excerpts etc. Remember, getting visitors to your site and then off your homepage to other areas of your site is the key, not some fancy banner that takes up half the page and 'looks nice'.

Hi Rupert,

Just having a quick glance - if you go a Google search for 'rental properties perth' for your site (enter "rental properties perth site:rent.com.au" in Google) - your top ranking page for that term is http://www.rent.com.au/rent/properties-in-north+perth-wa-6006. I assume you'd want to rank for a page like this, however: http://www.rent.com.au/rental/wa/perth

Is that the case?

The URL http://www.rent.com.au/rental/wa/perth rates as only a 'B" in SEOmoz's on page report card tool. The keyword is only mentioned only 3 times on the page, only once on the body.

There's obviously some issues with that - plus your internal linking structure. You need to direct all 'Perth' type pages to a central Perth location.

Hope this helps,

Brad (also from Perth :P)

Hi Chandana,

This article explains it all: http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/242/How+do+I+redirect+my+site+using+a+.htaccess+file%3F. It shows how to create and name the file and what code to use.

You would want to do this:

Redirect /index.html http://example.com/

I would also recommend redirecting non-www to www (or vice versa) if you haven't done so already - http://dense13.com/blog/2008/02/27/redirecting-non-www-to-www-with-htaccess/.

If you get stuck there's also a free htaccess generator located here: http://www.htaccessredirect.net/index.php

Let me know if you have any problems!

Hi Mark,

You should do a combination of:

1. Make sure the individual landing pages are highly optimised for relevant local-type searches
2. Good internal linking strategy to the individual landing pages with optimised anchor text
3. Link building externally to these new individual landing pages
4. 'De-optimising' the existing larger landing page so that it's not optimised for smaller, local-type searches but rather just large/generic searches. I.e not optimised for suburbs, but perhaps for a region

Thanks,

Brad

In my view it still has a large influence (although Google has stated this is diminishing).

Short term strategy - go for the second domain.

Long term strategy - go for the first. You'll create a better/more memorable 'brand name' and eventually Google's algorithm changes will reduce the importance of keywords in the domain name. You'll be able to get good SEO results, it will just take a little longer.

Hi Chris,

Your on site optimisation seems pretty good. However, when I ran your site through OSE and looked at the number of domains linking to your site, well you'll see the issue:

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/anchors?site=www.canadafloraldelivery.com%2F

You need to work on building more links. 47 overall linking domains isn't that many, I'd try and build that number up.

Thanks

Hi,

I think the overall design is pretty good. My advice would be:

1. Your homepage title tag seems too long
2. You seem to be spreading your targeted terms on the homepage too thin. Based on title tags and bolded text, you seem to be targeting: Sports Monitor, Sports Betting Forum, Handicapper Websites, Sports Handicapping Monitor, sports betting social network, sports betting forums, sell sports picks, sports handicapping scams etc. I'd try to just focus on 2-3, start ranking well for those then go after some secondary terms
3. Your choice of anchor text for links to inner pages seems a little odd. E.g. for http://www.line.com/sports-handicapper-rankings I assume you'd want to rank for something like "Sports Monitor". Thus, you should link to that page with the term "Sports Monitor" on the homepage, not "Accurate Sports Handicapping Monitor". The link to the http://www.line.com/sports-handicapper-websites is worse - it's using anchor text "Web Design Skills" which is not what you want to be ranking for on that page.
4. Some of the inner pages don't seem to be finished (title tags, meta tags etc) - e.g. http://www.line.com/sports-handicapper-rankings. Also, for that page are you trying to rank for "Sports Monitor" or "Sports Handicapper Rankings"? (or both?) I'd double check the URLs you are using.

Hope that helps!

Edit: I'd also add a better footer with basic internal linking structure. Even something like what SEOmoz has on this page is better than what you have with just the copyright info.

Jason, log in to Google Webmaster tools and there is a section for sitelinks.

What you have to do is 'demote' the sitelinks you DON'T want to appear. In this case these would be about us, contact us etc. As time goes on these pages will probably (it's not always guaranteed) be replaced as a sitelink by another page. You have to continue to demote pages that you dont want to appear until the right ones appear. Of course, you can just demote a bunch of pages before they even appear to save time.

This process can take a while and is not always 100%. The best  way to get each of these individual lawyer pages to appear is to build up the authority of these pages with backlinks etc, coupled with the above technique.

Good luck!

Hi Joel,

A very broad question but you've basically got to do 2 things:

Bounce Rate - Ensure your search terms closely match up to customer behaviour. If they search for "Washington Real Estate" you have to ensure that the page they land on matches what they would typically expect to find on that page. Your site must have an effective layout and present info in a way that is useful to your customer. If they land on the page, you want them to then visit subsequent areas of your site (be it for sale, for rent, info about the area etc).

Time on site - This is coupled with bounce rate. If you create quality landing pages with quality content on the rest of your site, you'll be seen by customers as a resource in this area, and they'll likely stay on the site for longer searching for more information.

Basically, quality content and a quality user experience.

Diane, I would honestly spend the money hiring one of the many consultants posting on SEOmoz and around other prominent SEO circles.

When you are looking to hire, ask for past examples, full transparency in what they are doing and develop a list of goals.

I'm not sure what your budget is, but SEOmoz has a list of recommend companies. These would generally be on the upper end of the $ scale, but you may be able to afford that.

Also - learn the basics of SEO yourself. You'll get a better understanding of what you need to do for your site and if consultants/companies are ripping you off.

Hope this helps!

Hi Saeed,

Don't bother with the Hubs or Squidoo. Focus your efforts on creating great content for your own site and blog.

I noticed the blog - http://giftbaskets4kids.blogspot.com.au/ - is quite spammy looking and probably not content that is going to get shared. What I would do is create a Christmas gift guide on your site with several different categories and pages, and then go about creating a plan to write great content for your site and blog that will promote these gift ideas.

When writing content for you blog, make sure it's going to be useful to the customer. Don't be afraid to link to outside sources.

Thanks

Most people use an image of themselves - remember the Author is you, not your company. Plus, Google has certain guidelines to getting your image published in SERPs, so you'll want to choose a good quality, personal photo.

Hi Mark,

1. Contact blogs in your niche and offer them products to review and keep (with a couple of links back to your site) or giveaway on their blog (again, we a couple of links back to your site). This works really well when a review and giveaway of the same product are done at the same time
2. Sign up for forums in your niche and actively start posting valuable content. Don't spam, be transparent about who you are, but offer genuine, useful content and discussion.
3. Analyse OSE every reindex and copy your competitor's best links! Be it in niche directories, blogs, high authority informational sites etc etc
4. Get social - sign up for FB, Twitter, Pinterest, G+ etc and become active - share, like, follow, comment etc (regularly!)

Hope this helps,
Brad

Hi Erin,

Sub directories are the preferred method. This has been asked many times on SEOmoz so I'll post a few links so you can have a look at some of the responses and exactly why they are preferred:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-vs-blog

http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-place-for-a-blog-blog-mydomain-com-or-mydomain-com-blog

http://www.seomoz.org/q/subdomains-vs-subfolders

Hope that helps!

Brad

Do. Not. Buy. Links.

Develop your own content that deserves to be read/shared, make sure your site is properly optimised (without going over the top) and focus on your own site, not your competitors.

Hi,

There's a few things you can do straight away. I'll assume you're trying to rank for' Windshield Repair' for your homepage and 'Windshield Repair Austin' and other keywords for each of the 'Service Area' pages.

1. Add keywords to your alt image tags. Currently the main image is 'crack auto glass' which isn't great from a SEO or usability point of view. Make sure they are not just plugged full of keywords, but actually describe your site and the image.
2. Rename the main image as 'windshield-repair-austin.png' or something similar (depending on page). Ensure the other images have a good naming structure too.
3. Use the keywords on each page you're trying to target. E.g. for http://www.autoglassrescue.com/service-areas/austin-tx you'll probably need to use a play on words so to speak. Something like "We offer the best windshield repair Austin has to offer". That way the keyword 'Windshield Repair Austin' is in the exact order of wording (you currently don't have it at all on that page).
4. Better use of H2 tags - be more descriptive and think of sub headings that describe your site a little better
5. Avoid cannibalization - don't target  'Windshield Repair Austin' on both the homepage and inner page. Focus on 1 page for each keyword (i.e change page titles etc so homepage focuses on generic terms and inner pages on location specific terms).
6. Get more links! http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autoglassrescue.com%2F You've got very few linking domains.

Hope this helps!

Hi Alan,

OSE lists all links, both followed and nofollowed. A good, natural looking link profile is vital for any website, so if you have say 80-90% followed links and 10-20% nofollowed links it's not going to hurt your site at all.

Having said that, don't go around forums/blogs simply looking for easy-to-get no followed links. Google will frown upon this.

OSE is just a tool to identify backlinks, social metrics etc. It's not encouraging nofollow links, just finding them.

I'm not exactly sure if a Google + page does gain authority with age, but is there any harm in starting the page now and getting a 2-3 month jump on building relationships/networks with others?

If you are thinking about doing it, why not just do it now? Plus - there's some great resources out there, particularly in the SEO industry. I've learnt a wealth of information in the 1-2 months I've been on Google +. Just my 2 cents.

Umm you just have to look at their homepage to see that it's as spammy as anything. Ask yourself this, does it sound too good to be true?

I would stay well clear of automated tools like this - unless you want another BMR on your hands - http://www.buildmyrank.com/news/its-been-a-great-run

Hi John,

A ticketing website seems like an ideal niche to generate some great content directly from your customers. Offer them the ability to rate past shows/events, share what they are going to, discuss artists/sporting teams etc. This will not only deliver A LOT of unique,relevant content to your site, it will encourage users to become part of the 'Ticket Trail Community'.

This will make the site rank better, and it will become more 'sticky' - in that users will want to regularly visit to interact with others with similar tastes. A win win in my eyes.

Thanks,
Brad

Agree wholeheartedly with Sean here.

Link exchange?! Instead of writing emails to webmasters, write meaningful, useful content in this niche. Examples would include auto spare parts guides (how to install, what to look for etc), comparison guides between brands/products etc etc.

I've used textbroker before with good results.

As with any service like this, you get your good and your bad - so start with a smaller project and if they are good, bookmark them and they are usually very keen for more work.

I've had a lot of on-site content written through this site.

OK, well as I mentioned earlier, I'd just have a clearer indication of what terms you want to rank for on each page. Concentrate on 2-3 terms for each page first, then move on to the secondary terms.

I'd ultimately change the URL of that inner page to http://www.line.com/sports-monitor and do a 301. Clean it up a bit, don't bold too many random terms that you are not trying to rank for, add page title + meta tags, and link to it (and other pages) internally from other pages and the new footer I suggested.

Free directories still have their place IMO.

If I were you, I'd have a look at aboutus.org and read a bit more on this page - http://www.aboutus.org/DoFollow. Quality links from a quality domain.

I'll second Get Elastic - fantastic blog with some great articles. Look out for their montly wrap-up which contains a wealth of informative links.

GManSEO - check out the list from here: http://www.invesp.com/blog-rank/Ecommerce

Good still places a huge importance on exact match keywords in the URL. I've got a number of small sites that rank number 1 for their specific keyword all due to the URL and very basic on site optimisation.

As for that particular domain name, to me it looks a little long and spammy. I agree with Marisa regarding the hypens, I would try and limit those. I'm sure these have been taken, but try something like:

www.webdesignco.com

www.webdesignseattle.com (or wherever you are based)

www.web-design-company.com

www.webdesignseattle.com

Etc. Anyway, I would just shorten it a bit and try and limit the hypens.

I second this. We have used Site Tuners a few times now with great results.

Each time we did a 90 min express review and got a full 1 on 1 conference call with a landing page optimisation specialist. The call is recorded and they will help you with (a few) follow up emails to clarify any points. They even reviewed our on-site changes after the call as part of the 90 min package. Well worth it.

Agree with Istvan, but I would also add - start creating some quality links!

Of course, getting these dodgy links removed should be your first step, but try and get a few quality links to outweigh these spammy ones. That will also help with resubmission if it comes to that.

From personal experience, if you share on Google Plus it gets indexed much much quicker.

I suggest starting a personal profile if you don't already have one and sharing on G+, plus other social media channels.

Hi Wayne,

I've recently had a friend launch a ecommerce site on Big Commerce. From everything I've read, and everything my friend tells me, they are fantastic. I had a bit of a play around with the backend and it's really easy to use too.

Prices start at around $25 a month and I'm pretty sure there are no locked in contracts.

Cheers

Good start but I would add the following:

1. Start following people/pages in your niche with high authority. Slowly start joining in the conversations, sharing information and encourage others to engage with you
2. Encourage friends and colleagues to start using Google +. Hopefully they'll join, engage with others, and start following you.
3. Link to your Google + page (and any other social media accounts you have) from your Twitter/Facebook/SEOmoz user profile/Rapportive etc accounts - anywhere you can possible connect with others

Hi Rhys,

I agree with everything that Alan stated regarding existing links.

Moving forward, I'd suggest the following:

1. Add the ability for customers to share your products socially. I don't see any social media icons on any of the pages, especially the product pages. Add FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus.
2. Do you have social media accounts for your site? If not, create the 4 above and start posting! You'll get more of a sense of community and people will be able to share what puzzles they've completed, which ones they want to purchase next etc. I'm not personally in to puzzles but I know people that are, and they can't wait to get their next one as soon as they finish one.
3. Highlight your competitive advantage more (on the item template, page titles etc). What makes you stand out? Free shipping? (BTW really really confusing having two free shipping points in dollars and pounds), best customer service, fast shipping, the latest puzzles etc.) Give people a reason to shop with you.
4. You've got reviews but none of the products I viewed had any reviews. I'd suggest emailing customers 3-4 weeks after purchase asking for reviews if you don't already. This would also tie in nicely with a social media pages. Reviews are great for original content.
5. Your blog has no entries and is dated from 2010? This doesn't look great...
6. If you're struggling to get good/unique content on the site try adding more pictures/videos/staff testimonials/staff favourites etc.

Hope some of that helps

Hi Sacha,

This was recently asked here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/blogs-are-best-when-hosted-on-domain-subdomain-or

I agree with Alan and Todd in that thread, you should go for www.domain.com/blog

Thanks

Text links pass far more link juice than image links.

Having said that, remember you want a 'natural' linking profile - so don't be afraid to add a few image links here and there (just make the majority of them text based).

I tried out a '5 custom articles for $5' type thing just because I was a little bored one afternoon and wanted to see if they would actually deliver. To my surprise, they delivered the articles within a few hours and they were all unique (I checked copyscape). The articles were written in a strange manner, when loaded into a word doc every 5th or so word was underlined so that it appeared like it was incorrect spelling. A little dodgy.

I wouldn't actually use this service for anything useful. Key rule for anything on the net: if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Work on building meaningful relationships and that way you'll get FB likes in a natural way. And you'll be able to engage your fans and get some benefit out of the relationship, not just 1000 meaningless likes.

Hi David,

Just a few little pointers:

1. Add a Pinterest 'Pin It' button to your site. You've got some interesting images on there, let users be able to pin them easily directly from your site.
2. The tourirst/travel niche seems ideal for Pinterest, so as well as point 1 above, create a Pinterest page and start sharing images of your favourite travel spots, people travelling etc
3. Create a Google Plus page and start posting
4. Your page titles are very basic - for that page it's just "Temples in Nagur". Try adding some secondary terms.
5. Likewise your meta descriptions are pretty boring - they don't really inspire me to visit the page: "TouristLink features 7 temples in Nagpur. The most popular temples in Nagpur are Koradi Temple, Shri Vyankatesh Temple and Ramtek Temple. Also of intertest are Ganesh Tekdi, Dhapewada Vithoba Temple and Adasa Ganpati Temple." - I'd rewrite these.
6. There's no external links to this page - http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.touristlink.com%2Findia%2Fnagpur%2Fcat%2Ftemples.html - develop some great content and get some links!

Thanks,

Brad

We have recently moved our SEO text from above the fold/products to below the fold/products and haven't noticed any changes in organic results. The reason for this is because the SEO text was pushing all the products below the fold and we noticed a significant jump in conversion rates once we changed the way our category pages were set out.

We generally try to go for 2-3 solid paragraphs of SEO text that explain the features, uses, brands etc of a certain type of product. Of course, this isn't good for just SEO, but it gives a basic overview of the product type to the customer.

We've also added a basic SEO tag at the top of each category, just under our logo so that our keywords are closer to the start of the code.

I'm not sure of the rules of posting your own URL, so apologise if I have broken any rules, but here is an example: http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au/Appliances/Soup-Baby-Food-Maker

Hi There,

I'll try and keep it simple because you're new. Could be a variety of reasons but I'd have a look in to the following:

1. Looks like there are no external links to this page? http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzwords.ltd.uk%2Ffreelance_copywriting.htm. I'd work on trying to get a few, with varying anchor text
2. Fix the alt image tags on the page. Instead of 'freelance-copywriting' have 'Freelance Copywriting' and so on. Don't make them all the same.
3. I think you have overused bold and italics. Remember, these are indicators to search engines as to what text is most important on the page.
4. I'd make your links to social media accounts nofollow (except wordpress)

That's a start. Start building more links to the page and you should start ranking in no time.

We know of a few people that have done this Vinnie.

It certainly looks better when a site has 500+ likes than some of the sites we have just launched that have less than 10 likes. It's not just about people buying from a site with more likes, it's about people wanting to join your community. Why would the average person want to join a community with another 8 people? They probably won't see any benefit in that.

Hi Joel,

As for these books - I've only read the 2009 edition - http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Mastering-Optimization/dp/0596518862. There was an updated version this year - http://www.amazon.com/Art-SEO-Eric-Enge/dp/1449304214/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339728490&sr=1-1 that I am yet to read but hope to soon.

Thanks

By encouraging them do you mean placing the relevant social sharing buttons in a prominent position on your site? If so, that's fine, a lot of companies do that.

Give your users a reason to like/follow/+1 you and they will, just don't shove it down their throat.

Hi Mark,

They have business pages - see http://www.google.com/+/business/

You basically create a business page under an existing personal G+ account.

Thanks,
Brad