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lav
08-05-2009, 08:38 PM
SEO for me taking up too much time with little results especially since I have no real idea what Im suppose to be doing I think I may just hire somone who knows what they are doing but Im worried that they will request too much work from me. It is one of those things where I read a lot about what I am supposed to do, some of it makes sense some of it doesnt and I really start to wonder if all those things that I read are written by people who really know or are they just making it up.

Here is something that fascinates me and Im hoping someone here can enlighten me. My site is only very new (about 4 weeks old) I am still adding content now and will be for a long time yet. Why is it that if I search for "Classic roller banner" in google

This page (https://www.xlgrafix.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_new.tpl&product_id=20) is way ahead of this page (https://www.xlgrafix.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_new.tpl&product_id=68&category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=135) when i would much prefer it to be the other way around.

What is it that I have done right with the first page or what have i done wrong with the second page? To me it seems as if it is just random and it is hard to fix something if you cant find the problem.

royhunters
08-05-2009, 08:55 PM
Sometimes if you use the same keywords to optimize two different pages you are leaving the choice to Google to decide which one it likes best, not the one you like the best.

Separate your keyword "categories" and optimize your other pages for separate keywords. This will allow you to be found through different keyword searches.

If you look at my company website at Florida Marketing Consultants - Business, Marketing, (http://www.mymarketingcompany.com) you will see an example of this. All our category pages have the same header and footer so to someone that has entered the site through any of those category doors, they will think they have found the homepage. It is a multiple entry technique that works very well and gives me 8 pages I can optimize for related search terms for my business.

New sites are a pain and you are going to have to pay your dues like everyone else. It is hard work. You have to market your website before your website can market you.

I posted a topic that is just right for you, I would suggest you follow it so you can hear what everyone else says about SEO for a new site. It sounds lame but that article really is a step by step set of instructions to get your page ranked well. It does work and that advice is free.

Look for the step by step instructions topic on this board, I just posted it yesterday.

You have a good 3 months of work ahead of you. If you have a lot of money, pay someone else to do it, but be careful, most SEO firms in search results are scams. Look for the guy who is ranked #1 in your local area, if his site is #1 then he will know what it takes to make yours #1. But get ready to give him a poket full of foldin'!

lav
08-05-2009, 10:16 PM
Sometimes if you use the same keywords to optimize two different pages you are leaving the choice to Google to decide which one it likes best, not the one you like the bestAnd that is the big question why does google like the first page better than the second. I read your step by step post and it is a great starting point for people like myself and I believe I could do all of those points well ...... if i could just get past the first 2 points. lol . Ive been reading lots about SEO in the last couple of months and have been amazed how SEO guys can get absorbed by it all without realising that they are overlooking in their blog posts and forum posts and web pages the most basics of basics. In the end it seems to me that 90% of SEO guys are just marketing to each other because the rest of us dont understand them after the 2nd or 3rd word in their sentence. lol.

cbscreative
08-05-2009, 10:58 PM
Time...

If you have been reading up on SEO, that is the one thing you will need the most. You need time to make sense of SEO, time to get ranked, and time to improve your ranking. The good news is, when you do it right without seeking tricks or shortcuts, you'll find it less volitile (probably stable). Many of the SEO techniques are short lived, but useful content will never be penalized.

As for understanding it all, the more you know, the more you will realize you don't know.

royhunters
08-05-2009, 11:04 PM
If you knew why Google liked the first page better than the second you would be in the SEO business making A LOT of money!

Where in Oz are you? I spent 7 years as a cane toad in Brissy.

billbenson
08-05-2009, 11:37 PM
Not sure why one places over the other, but one thing I'd change is; your h1 tag is "Important Info" h3 is Classic Roller Banner or Double Sided Classic Roller Banner. Your heading tags are saying the page is about important information while your title tag says what the page is about.

I'd remove the h3 altogether and make Double Sided Classic Roller Banner or whatever the h1. Otherwise you are sending mixed signals to google as to what the page is about.

lav
08-06-2009, 12:22 AM
I'd remove the h3 altogether and make Double Sided Classic Roller Banner or whatever the h1.
Thank you Billbenson I'll definately do this. This is the sort of suggestions I was hoping for.

As for understanding it all, the more you know, the more you will realize you don't know.Im starting to wonder if anyone really knows lol even google themselves


Where in Oz are you? I spent 7 years as a cane toad in Brissy.bloody queenslanders!!! Im in Newcastle

vangogh
08-06-2009, 01:07 AM
I assume the phrase you want to rank for is without the word double in it? What I see is both are actually the same page (index.php) with different parameters. You can use mod_rewrite to created better URLs. Search engines can crawl dynamic URLs, but I still think they recommend no more than 2 parameters.

One way you can organize the structure or your URLs is what Roy mentioned. You can structure your content around keyword themes. In this case you might have

domain.com
domain.com/roller-banner/
domain.com/roller-banner/classic.php
domain.com/roller-banner/double-sided-classic.php

If there are other classic roller banners then maybe it's

domain.com/roller-banner/classic/double-sided.php

Each of the URLs links back up through the navigation helping to reinforce the more general phrases while the file name ends up being the name of the most specific phrase for the category. Even though your pages are being generated dynamically you can rewrite the URLs through mod_rewrite so they show as the structure above.

You can also add breadcrumb links at the top of the page

Home > Banner > Roller Banner > Classic > Double Sided Roller Banner

Each breadcrumb except the last is a link back to the category pages above.

You can change the h3 to an h1 and I would, but I doubt you'll see much of an effect. I'd still do it since it's an easy change and it does make structural sense on the page.

Odds are you're sending more internal link juice to the double page which would cause it to rank more. As it's a new site I assume there aren't a lot of external links coming into the site.

And yes the site is still new so some of this could just be that Google found the double page first and at the moment thinks it's the more important of the two. You have to tell Google through internal links and overall site structure and even better external links to the page that the non-double page is the more important one.

billbenson
08-06-2009, 03:20 AM
VG, are you saying breadcrumbs help SEO, and if so, what emphasis tags would you put on them?

I really like that page structure idea in the URL and had not seen that before; either that or your presentation of it was better. Makes a lot of sense though!

vangogh
08-06-2009, 03:44 AM
The breadcrumbs would first help with usability, but they also create internal links back up the structure of your content. The more specific pages then help the more general pages. All your deep pages link back up to their main category pages.

I wouldn't put any special emphasis on them. I don't think things like bolding and italicizing do much. I might use one for the current page, which wouldn't get a link, but it would be a design thing and not an seo thing.

lav
08-08-2009, 04:30 AM
You can use mod_rewrite to created better URLsThanks vangogh I knew you would come through with some constructive suggestions. Now I have to learn how to do this... so much learning involved, I cant wait for the day to come when I just KNOW EVERYTHING lol

lav
08-08-2009, 05:43 AM
OK so I check again today and search for classic roller banner and guess what it has changed. I have done nothing except changed the h3 and h1 tags as billbenson suggested. My Classic Roller banner is first with the double sided...... well who cares where that is. Thanks for fixing it ..... umm whoever did it!!

This is what makes it so difficult, SEO to me is part guesswork, part luck and part voodoo magic lol

Now I need to work on getting a decent rank for more important keywords such as "banner" and "banner stand" (hint for whoever is holding the voodoo doll)

vangogh
08-09-2009, 05:28 AM
I wouldn't have thought the h3 to h1 would have made a big difference, but you never know, which is why sometimes you just have to try and see what happens. It could have simply been a matter of time too.

With the mod_redirect you can check my delicious profile (http://delicious.com/vangogh99/301?page=2). That's the link to the posts I've tagged as 301. You can also search my bookmarks for mod_rewrite or redirects.

You might need more than what I have bookmarked though. You're probably going to need to do some work beyond .htaccess. Awhile back I read a book on seo with php (http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Search-Engine-Optimization-ebook/dp/B001C34Q1S/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1) that I think will have everything you need. The link will take you to Amazon. The book was good and worth the price.

billbenson
08-09-2009, 11:34 AM
I think in this case, the H1 H3 thing could have an affect because they sent contradicting messages to search engines. Particularly if that contradiction is spread through the site. Was it the reason for the change? Who knows. I'm just a believer in crossing the t's and dotting the I's for the major tags on the page. VG doesn't use meta keywords; I put one key phrase in there, in this case "classic roller banner". Will that help you? Probably not, but it may and who's to say Google doesn't like them in the future or bing for that matter. If it only takes a few seconds and you do it properly, I say use it.

Right above your current h1 is another empty h1. I'd get rid of that.

Also, at the bottom of your page you have "Important Info" in an h3. It's not important to G in respect to what the page is about, so I would replace it with strong or a span tag.

Your title tag is fine and I think it is the most important tag on the page.

Will this help you? Maybe over time. Just make life easier for G and it may be the straw that broke the camels back and it doesn't take much time. Its probably part of your cms anyway. Change it once and its changed forever on all pages in most cases.