Help with SEO & Feedback on my (nearly complete) website.

[mas]

After a bit of help with SEO really, I know there are a few web designers on here who know their s**t with this type of thing. I basically need to get my business nice and high up on Google, Bing etc.. What is the best thing to be looking at and spending the most time on? Ive got the usual meta keywords and descriptions in place, but could do with some more tips! Its been live for about 4 days, is pretty much complete minues a few pages and the ordering system.

And yes, it is built using acient tables, but they are doing the trick so far. I have saved off my .css files in to a separate directory on most pages as im sure you will see.

Here is the link... any feedback & help will be great!

www.greenhouseepc.co.uk

Thanks.
Sam

 

[mas]

Anyone? Ive done some updates to the site but fcucking FTP is down!

 

[JonniP]

i was talking to a guy the other day that has a company that specialises in SEO and im sure he said something like buying loads of domain names being the cheapest and easy way. I know nothing of SEO just recounting a bit of a conversation i had!

 

[C.J]

I'll have a look tomorrow.

 

[C.J]

Site looks nice, I like it.

SEO, needs some work. I can see you've made a start on the basics, but it's not good enough to make an impact.

Here are a few points I've noticed in a few minutes;

• No robots.txt file?
• No html sitemap (I found only the XML sitemap)
• Image alt tags aren't good enough, need to relate to that page's keyword theme
• Link (title) tags, there are a few, but ALL links need a title tag (make sure every page link is the same as the H1 tag on the resolving page)
• No H1 tag
• Keyword density doesn't look enough

They are the ones I've noticed at a glance, on just the homepage.

HTH

i was talking to a guy the other day that has a company that specialises in SEO and im sure he said something like buying loads of domain names being the cheapest and easy way. I know nothing of SEO just recounting a bit of a conversation i had!

Can't see how that would ever help. On site is key.

 

[Adams_16v]

Site looks pretty good! I like the bird graphics.

Tables are bad for SEO though.

Site also seems very slow for me, Google will penalise for slow loading sites.

C.J has pointed out the main issues.

As for buying loads of domains... this can help. It would mean buying and developing 'keyword domains' which generally rank quite well with little effort (I have a keyword domain that is often 1st in Google with hardly any inbound links and a pageank of 0.) Write content rich info on the mini sites, and link the main keywords back to your main site.

On site SEO is a must though, and also quality inbound links to your sites, especially from high ranking authority sites.

I would make the news titles link to the news page, not the content as links.

Get Google Webmaster tools and add the site, sitemap etc. This helps Google out with indexing your site.

If you want first page traffic, look at AdWords, of Microsoft AdCentre in the meantime.

Add Social networking links on the site, set up a Facebook business page and integrate some of the tools into the site.

Add a mailing list, especially for people looking to purchase now and cant. They may want to register their interest.

Emphasise on your main keywords throughout the site, pick 5 or so and link internally around your site (in the content). Add title tags and bold keywords. Don't go overboard though, just a few per page.

Good luck!

 

[sn00p]

Sort your headline banner our, the layout is very poor.

I read it as:

"Greenhouse Energy"
"<b>Catering</b> for all regions"

I read that as 2 separate statements, which makes you sound like a catering company.

 

[Revels]

Two things I noticed..

Your big blue box with 'Order Now' on. I expected that to be clickable.

Your little birds are great. But what look like links about then are just plain text. I expected those to be links. Especially as it's a different colour to the normal text.

 

[mas]

Cool, thanks for your help chaps, feedback is important!!

I have an XMLsitemap and submitted to Google, but no HTML on site, I will sort that tonight.

C.J
Whats the robot.txt file and what does it do?
What is a H1 Tag and what does it do?

Adams_16v
What do you mean by link my keyworks internally? My main keywords would be say "EPC" "Energy Assessment" "National Coverage" "Quick Turnaround" etc..? How would I link them together?

sn00p
I will have a look at my headline when I get in, still some niggles which need ironing out.

Revels
All of my others do, I changed that one last night and must have forgot to add a link, thanks for pointing it out. oops!

Thanks for all your help!

 

[mas]

Oh, and I would love to design it other than using tables, but, I aint got the skillz. They do work.... just. LOL

 

[mas]

If anyone wants to re-write the code for the title tags, feel free... i wont mind :star:

 

[C.J]

C.J
Whats the robot.txt file and what does it do?
What is a H1 Tag and what does it do?

See the robots.txt file as a book of rules for the search engines. You can tell them where to look, and where not to.

Start with;

User-agent: *
Sitemap: http://www.greenhouseepc.co.uk/sitemap.xml

This tells the search engine to look at your sitemap, very important, it's the contents page to them.

You can also tell the search engines NOT to cache a page/folder by adding;

Disallow: foldername

H1 tags, this is the FIRST heading on your page, it's the title or heading which should describe your page. You should be able to sum up the page content here. It should also be relevant to your page title, and the links pointing to your page.

Each page should have a theme for it's keywords.

<h1>Title of the page</h1>

Might want to add some CSS in your .css file for the H1, or the text will be massive.

 

[McBunny]

how much for an epc

 

[mas]

Christ, this SEO is more complex than I once thought. Back in the day, all you had to do was add a few meta keywords and you were off!

I will have a look at the robot.txt, I will look at anything if its going to increase my ranking!

 

[mas]

£Price depends on area, start at £40 inc VAT.

 

[McBunny]

cool just wondered

 

[mas]

For my site, how much would it cost for a scripter to re-write it in to something better? All the graphics are in place, I wouldnt mind having someone re-do the whole lot with proffesional SEO!

 

[C.J]

This isn't SEO related, but conversion related.

Get a phone number on the top of every page, preferably an 0845/0844 number. These are FREE to use, and make a difference in my experience.

Customers want to see a phone number.

 

[mas]

My mate works for a telecoms company, I have asked him to look in to that for me. Would just want it to ping through to my mobile.

 

[mas]

Result, just searched google for "cheap nationwide EPC" - and Greenhouse is fourth from the top

Need to make these new changes which have been stated above, can someone explain in more details about the keywords within the page, and linking them? Im a little unsure about what this means.

 

[C.J]

If there is a keyword mentioned in your text, which points to another page, link it.

Similar to the word 'about us' being linked mid-sentence to the about us page.

Try not to go over kill with the links though. And remember, EVERY link needs a title/link tag, which is identical to that of the other links pointing to the same page.

E.g.

EVERY link that points to 'about-EPC.html' will have the title tag 'who is Greenhouse'.

 

[Mr Pants]

The first process with SEO should be identifying your target. What is the most popular term for the product you sell? Is it 'Greenhouse Energy' or 'Greenhouse EPC Supply' etc etc. This kind of depends on your goal with the website. Are you actively looking to generate leads / sales via the web or is it more a case of just having an online presence and your promotion is predominantly done via other methods.

If you are looking to get some good business from the web then you need to do your market research. Find out what people are searching for and get your site involved there.

On page optimization should be your first goal. Others have already mentioned this. H1 with your keyword is important. It's telling the search engine bots that this is the main description of my site, this is how you should classify my site. Alt tags on images are a good place to put your keywords in. Once you have that down you want to start building some links. The best way to view a link is like a vote. So a site links to you, that's like Google coming along and saying 'oh s**t, site X is telling me to go to site Y so that must mean site Y is worthwhile visiting'. You want a nice selection of links from decent sites with authority and good anchor text on those links (again keyword related).

If it's a really low competition keyword you could do some solid on page optimization and get a few good links and be in the top results. If it's a more competitive term you're targeting then links > on page.

 

[mas]

You da boys!

Im going to get linking within my pages today and pick choice keywords for each page. I have just completed saving all of my .css files to separate them from the .html... also re-written my headers and made sure my meta descriptions, and content link to the header on a regular basis.

I am aiming to generate business and leads from this website alone, Ive also written a few articles and published them to the major high ranking sites, with links back to greenhouse, Hopefully these will go live shortly.

Thanks for all your help!!

oh, and ive added the robot=follow all tag on each page.

 

[mas]

Sorry to bump this one up!

Any of you guys know of a good way that I can integrate an ordering system in to the site, what is the best VFM and most customisable platform to use, I want it to look part of the site when its complete.... not some other separate random page!

Thanks

 

[jocker]

SEO is an-going process and the key to google ranking it higher is content and key words. If i typed cheap EPC would your site recognise this phrase?. You also need inbound links to your site as this also helps.

Improve conversion by adding a contact box - it really does work. If you look at research it shows also that its more effective to have your tool bars on the left, not the top.

The line of work your in is competitive. Expect to pay at least £500-£750 a month for SEO alone. Combine with PPC for early traffic but remember 80% of users click organically.

On a design point when i clicked on your site I didnt get what you did quickly. Try to move the copy below the fold of the screen and use the viewing area for more snappy content

 

[mas]

Thanks Jocker, i have been looking in to PPC more recently... but, as you said... I think the majority will be clicking on the organic results!

I have some random glitch on my home page, that the sliced image inside the table is out of line. But I can not work out why, any ideas? In Firefox and Safari its fine, its just the home and order page. When in dreamweeaver, it sits fine, its a random IE glitch!

 

[El Marko]

IE renders tables completely different to firefox and safari.

Thats why you do it in CSS!

 

[mas]

WHat do you mean, thats why do it in css? I have treated my tables with CSS? :S

 

[El Marko]

you need to use Divs and not tables.

I presume you sliced in photoshop and used the html it generated?

Tables are old and crap, theres nothing wrong with using them but you do face problems like this.

Yes you have used CSS but only to style your text. You need to use 'pure' CSS and replace your table with a div. like <div class "header"></div> then set a style for header in css like the width, height etc. then drop the image of your header inside the div.

 

[mas]

I really should do some reading up on web design, I need to remove my tables asap. Thanks for your help El Marko!

 

[furry_cup]

• No robots.txt file?
• No html sitemap (I found only the XML sitemap)
• Image alt tags aren't good enough, need to relate to that page's keyword theme
• Link (title) tags, there are a few, but ALL links need a title tag (make sure every page link is the same as the H1 tag on the resolving page)
• No H1 tag
• Keyword density doesn't look enough

They are the ones I've noticed at a glance, on just the homepage.

HTH



Can't see how that would ever help. On site is key.

Site looks pretty good! I like the bird graphics.

Tables are bad for SEO though.

Site also seems very slow for me, Google will penalise for slow loading sites.

C.J has pointed out the main issues.

As for buying loads of domains... this can help. It would mean buying and developing 'keyword domains' which generally rank quite well with little effort (I have a keyword domain that is often 1st in Google with hardly any inbound links and a pageank of 0.) Write content rich info on the mini sites, and link the main keywords back to your main site.

On site SEO is a must though, and also quality inbound links to your sites, especially from high ranking authority sites.

I would make the news titles link to the news page, not the content as links.

Get Google Webmaster tools and add the site, sitemap etc. This helps Google out with indexing your site.

If you want first page traffic, look at AdWords, of Microsoft AdCentre in the meantime.

Add Social networking links on the site, set up a Facebook business page and integrate some of the tools into the site.

Add a mailing list, especially for people looking to purchase now and cant. They may want to register their interest.

Emphasise on your main keywords throughout the site, pick 5 or so and link internally around your site (in the content). Add title tags and bold keywords. Don't go overboard though, just a few per page.

Good luck!

+1

The first process with SEO should be identifying your target.

+++++1

 

[mas]

Ive left the original site online, and I'm going begin re-building it using divs instead, wish me luck.... I didn't even know what a div was until today. Nice.

 

[El Marko]

Ive left the original site online, and I'm going begin re-building it using divs instead, wish me luck.... I didn't even know what a div was until today. Nice.

Good luck.

I seriously hope you've read some tutorials, or following one as you do it. It can be a right pain. But so worth it when its complete

 

[172.com]

Some good advice in here. My only input would be to remove the meta tags. Google (and others) have said they no longer use them, so all you're effectively doing is telling your competitors what keywords you're targetting.

 

[El Marko]

Thats interesting, Now i know why alot of high ranking sites have no meta info!

Is content king then? or is there other stuff i should be doing?

 

[172.com]

Content is king.

However, this may interest you...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?_r=2&hpw