Website marketing

[bigmouk]

I've just launched a new site this week for my business and am looking to market it. Been developing on and off for 10 years now so I do know quite a bit. However, when it comes to SEO I have limited knowledge and time! I know much of the advice tends to be link, link and more links.

So, this is what ive done so far ....

• Done the keywords, description, page titles
• Submitted URL to Google, Verified URL and submitted the XML sitemap
• Submitted URL to Windows Live, Verified URL and submitted the XML sitemap
• Submitted URL to Yahoo, Verified URL and submitted the XML sitemap
• Submitted URL to DMOZ (although i've not had much luck with this in the past)
• Setup online advert with yell.com (should be live next week)
• Setup account/mini-site with BT Trade Space (not quite finished)

Is there anything else I can do quickly which is effective ? I've noticed BT have jumped on the SEO bandwagon offering a service for around £35 per month.

 

[C.J]

Site SEO:

Alt tags, title tags (for EVERY link - this is not the page title tag), robots.txt with a sitemap call, content > code.

Try and get links from related websites, not link farms.

Have you got your phone number clearly displayed at the top of the page? Make sure you have.

Write the content for your guests, not the search engine.

What's your URL?

 

[jon_r]

Pay per click.

 

[bigmouk]

Cheers mate.

The phone number and fax number is displayed on the right hand side at the moment and in the t & c's. Should i move these to the top of the page ?

The URL is http://www.receptionsdirect.co.uk

BTW - It still needs a bit of work and some design input at some point!

 

[koi]

Looking pretty good, I would move the contact numbers to the top so it's easier to find.

This done with oscommerce?

 

[bigmouk]

Every bit developed from the ground up with VS 2005 Pro, ASP.Net 2.0, ASP.Net AJAX 1.0, SQL 2005 and few 3rd party components like GCheckout.

I like the flexibility of doing everything myself, although I dont have much patience for programming these days.

 

[furry_cup]

Content is king im affraid, no matter how much you SEO a site, content will ALWAYS be far more superior than any seo technique.

wouldnt waste your cash on pay per click.

 

[furry_cup]

i notice on all/alot of your anchor tags you have not included a title attrtibute. is this down to a cms you might be using? or have you coded the site from bottom up. always good to be standard compliant with all markup.

 

[C.J]

Yes, always display the phone number at the top. It looks professional, knowing you can be contacted via phone (you're not hiding behind an email form) and if a customer can't find a product, let them pick up the phone without search for a contact us link.

You're site (or homepage at least) has never been cached by google. When did you submit your site?

I see the domain is only 4 months old, it will take some time for the search engines to trust it. Newer sites will always take longer to creep up the rankings.

 

[bigmouk]

Only submitted on Monday to the search engines. I've actually just had googlebot on there this morning, still no crawl stats from googlebot in the webmaster tools though. Might take a few days to update probably.

I've added the phone no and email address to the top banner now. Cheers for that.

It does seem like I've done all I can for the moment. I guess going forward is trying to get recipricol links on related websites. Also, improve and add good content i think.

 

[Englebert]

Pay Per Click is useful actually, but it is easy to waste money if you don't know what you're doing. Typically i cut 50% from a clients account without reducing the amount of enquiries/purchases they get. This is because i eliminate a lot of keywords and broad matching eats up budget...

As said with SEO, content is important. You need to be looking at 200+ pages on your website. It has to be contextual, without being spammy. Basically, write articles about what you do and extend information with your products/services. Do client testimonials, case studies etc.

Submit articles to article websites, but not the same ones to ALL of them (duplicate content is not ideal).

You need to build contextual links, hundreds of them. Depends on your market (i.e. how competitive) though.

Send me a link to your website and i will pick a lot of problems...

You may have to face the facts you will have to pay someone to do it. If you want a succesful business you can't be the one that does everything.

 

[jon_r]

wouldnt waste your cash on pay per click.

It can actually work very well if you know what you are doing, set the right budget and select the right keywords.

 

[bigmouk]

Pay Per Click is useful actually, but it is easy to waste money if you don't know what you're doing. Typically i cut 50% from a clients account without reducing the amount of enquiries/purchases they get. This is because i eliminate a lot of keywords and broad matching eats up budget...

As said with SEO, content is important. You need to be looking at 200+ pages on your website. It has to be contextual, without being spammy. Basically, write articles about what you do and extend information with your products/services. Do client testimonials, case studies etc.

Submit articles to article websites, but not the same ones to ALL of them (duplicate content is not ideal).

You need to build contextual links, hundreds of them. Depends on your market (i.e. how competitive) though.

Send me a link to your website and i will pick a lot of problems...

You may have to face the facts you will have to pay someone to do it. If you want a succesful business you can't be the one that does everything.

Link is on post 4 mate. I know there will be issues here and there. If this is something you do as a profession, feel free to send me some details over. I dont have a lot of cash being a new business but would be willing to look at what can be achieved. thanks again.

 

[Englebert]

Our SEO services start from £1000, going to £10000... it can get expensive, all i can say is that you get the money back in the long run. Its just finding the initial money to invest...

Sorry, missed your link. Well being a brand new site, you are somewhat screwed for the first 12 months. This is because new sites are not trusted, the theory (of search engines) being why would a brand new site be more useful than established sites?

Check your rankings, if you cannot find your site in the first 15 pages based on searching the phrases within your Title Tag, you're in the sandbox. Doesn't matter what you do, you're in there for months.

Don't panic, because almost everyone goes through it. Thats where PPC comes in for the short term. Do not start trying to build links really quickly, because its not 'natural.' You will be penalised further.

Is your site literally just launched? Your site isn't cached...

Your keyword reptition is very poor. 'Reception Unit' is the first keyord in your title tag yet it isn't even mentioned once on the first page! Your company name should be the last thing in your title tag BTW.

You can also improve your internal linking, don't link to 'reception-units.htm,' link to 'http://www.receptionsdirect.co.uk/reception-units.htm.' Any weight from your homepage will be in part transferred to your sub pages. This becomes more important with the more pages you have. Some websites establish PageRank without ANY external links...

 

[bigmouk]

Tweaked around a lot now with my site, however, i'm pretty sure im in the 'sandbox' for my main keywords/phrase. I understand the 'sandbox' theory but dont understand the timelines involved ? Some articles say 6-12 months or even more!

Is it mainly down to trust with google, do i need put more time and effort into getting quality backlinks ?

 

[furry_cup]

Copy content is king, tie it in with the heading tags and title tag.

 

[theduck]

Content Content Content!

I have a site that just simply shouldnt come up in google, everything is wrong, hosting is wrong, domain name type is wrong, everything is bad, but it still ranks well becaue the content is right.

 

[Adams_16v]

Content is king in most cases...but...

I have a site that is no1 in google for major search terms and it has barely any content or inlinks to it, just a very well structured site with good domain name!

However this is purely due to the domain name and the minimal content it has....good content is vital, and so are quality in links, a well coded site, as well as regularly updated content, good internal linking, and external linking too.

You do not need to submit sites to search engines like Google, just let them find you! I always think its less pushy this way! I have never submitted a site to any search engine, and they always get found within a few days of going live! top tip - If you want to get found super quick, and help your sites reputation put a link onto gumtree!

Webmaster tools is a must though! Good luck with DMOZ, I submitted my retail business 3 years ago and its still not on there! lol!

pay per click is good also, but again depends on the business. I make about 200-300% ROI on my adwords spend each month!

I like the site, looks professional, but when i first viewed the site, it took a while to figure out where to look to navigate.

I personally would have large images on the homepage showing each section and make the menu on the left and along the top stand out more so people know instantly where to look and click!

Also maybe some more images to go with the areas on the right hand side. i.e a picture of a delivery van with the free delivery, etc.

Good luck!

 

[cava83]

Good tips on here.

Nice site too, well done.

 

[bigmouk]

Content is king in most cases...but...

I have a site that is no1 in google for major search terms and it has barely any content or inlinks to it, just a very well structured site with good domain name!

However this is purely due to the domain name and the minimal content it has....good content is vital, and so are quality in links, a well coded site, as well as regularly updated content, good internal linking, and external linking too.

You do not need to submit sites to search engines like Google, just let them find you! I always think its less pushy this way! I have never submitted a site to any search engine, and they always get found within a few days of going live! top tip - If you want to get found super quick, and help your sites reputation put a link onto gumtree!

Webmaster tools is a must though! Good luck with DMOZ, I submitted my retail business 3 years ago and its still not on there! lol!

pay per click is good also, but again depends on the business. I make about 200-300% ROI on my adwords spend each month!

I like the site, looks professional, but when i first viewed the site, it took a while to figure out where to look to navigate.

I personally would have large images on the homepage showing each section and make the menu on the left and along the top stand out more so people know instantly where to look and click!

Also maybe some more images to go with the areas on the right hand side. i.e a picture of a delivery van with the free delivery, etc.

Good luck!

Good advice, thanks! Didnt get an email notification about your post which is a bit weird ?!

Its so frustrating with Google though as they have companies by the b*llocks! For example ....

Organic results

Yahoo - Search term 'Receptions Direct' - No 1
Yahoo - Search term 'Reception Desks' - No 8
Yahoo - Search term 'Reception Desk' - No 12

Google - Search term 'Receptions Direct' - No 1
Google - Search term 'Reception Desks' - NOWHERE!
Google - Search term 'Reception Desk' - NOWHERE!

Problem is you get next to no traffic from Yahoo because nearly everyone uses Google. Im obviously 'sandboxed' for these search terms and have been since launch 3 months ago. Get this though ...

Google - Search term 'Reception Desk' - Library Building of University of East Anglia (UEA) - No 11
Google - Search term 'Reception Desk' - Cats with renal failure - No 12

???? WTF!

They are not relevant search results in my eyes just complete random search results. I'm not expecting to get to page 1 overnight but would expect to be in the top 100 results for people searching for a reception desk.

I think part of the problem is that I do everything myself from programming the whole site, design, database work, hosting, generated the 15,000 images on the site, all the company accounts, marketing, sales, you name it really. So its very hard to concentrate on one area and improve it. Any spare cash gets put back into the business mainly on advertising. Probably need to try and get some help sooner or later.