Whirlpool

Hi, I have recently got a website up for my service based business and am looking for ways to boost its search ranking.

I have been and am continuing to research the mountain of information available online but am wondering if there is anyone who does a bit of SEO and is nice enough to have a look at my website and give me their opinion of what I should concentrate my efforts on. Due to finances or lack there off paying someone to do it for me is not really an option

Firstly I have don’t have a great technical knowledge but have gone through the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide and done most of what it suggested, I have been trying to build links (mainly with web directories) and am in the process of increasing the keywords in the text. (Don’t know if it’s relevant but it says "no data available" under keywords in my Google webmaster account)

Any general or more specific comments would be greatly appreciated and other information that may be of use is that it’s running on Cpanel with a Word Press CMS

I assume I can’t post my website here as it could be considered advertising but can whim it to any one interested.

tryagain writes...

I assume I can’t post my website here as it could be considered advertising but can whim it to any one interested.

You can; the problem is that if your small business site is poorly optimised or just not well-known, this thread may rank highly for your brand keywords.

Whim me if you like and i'll take a look.

Have you tried a wordpress seo plugin?

Also I recently found this simple guide that I've found is easy for non-seo types to undestand: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Thanks for that link Greg, that's a very helpful summary.

Greg writes...

Whim me if you like and i'll take a look.

Done

Have you tried a wordpress seo plugin?

I had'nt but have now, nice and easy to do

Also I recently found this simple guide that I've found is easy for non-seo types to undestand: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Very handy link indeed

shuriken writes...

You can; the problem is that if your small business site is poorly optimised or just not well-known, this thread may rank highly for your brand keywords.

Its probably both

Hope that you don't mind if I reply here. I'll try to keep it generic and will mainly focus on the home page.

Page title: Your site currently has this as "<site name>". I'd suggest makeing it "<site name> | <keywords>" up to max 66 characters. Subpages have "<page name> | <site name>", think about making it "<page name> | <site name> – <keywords>"

Page Urls: Most of your level 2 pages don't have their complete page name in the url, just the first word. Use all the words and seperate with a hyphen

Page name: Your home page has a heading of "Home" this doesn't really help users or SEO. I'd suggest you change it to: "<site name> – <tagline>". Keep "HOME" as the top nav link.

Text: I'd probably suggest that you try to add about double or more the amount of text to each page. Break it up using paragraphs and headings (wih keywords). Try to add your region or suburb as much as possible.

Footer: Include your address in the footer and submit yourself to googles local business center.

Breadcrumbs: Add in breadcrumbs if you can.

Images: Make sure you fill out the alternate text and image filename with keywords. This applies to your logo and any on page images.

Call to action: Put a contact us link or button on every page (or your phone number).

Flash: Flash images don't add anything to SEO. I'd suggest removing the flash and using images or putting some keyword rich descriptions of the images inside the <object> tags if possible

Outgoing links: Can you remove the Designed and Developed by link?

Greg writes...

I recently found this simple guide that I've found is easy for non-seo types to undestand: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Thanks Greg !

Greg writes...

Hope that you don't mind if I reply here. I'll try to keep it generic and will mainly focus on the home page.

That’s fine, hopefully it will help others too

Page title: Your site currently has this as "<site name>". I'd suggest makeing it "<site name> | <keywords>" up to max 66 characters. Subpages have "<page name> | <site name>", think about making it "<page name> | <site name> – <keywords>"

I have already added in keywords to "tag line" box in the wp cms but am under the assumption that it wont show up in Google until the googlebot has another look at my site is this right or have I done it incorrectly. I have also worked through this http://bavotasan.com/tutorials/how-to-modify-your-wordpress-title-tag-for-search-engine-optimization/

Page Urls: Most of your level 2 pages don't have their complete page name in the url, just the first word. Use all the words and seperate with a hyphen

Just recently expanded those page names but didn’t update the urls, thanks for pointing this out

Page name: Your home page has a heading of "Home" this doesn't really help users or SEO. I'd suggest you change it to: "<site name> – <tagline>". Keep "HOME" as the top nav link.

Still trying to figure out how/where to do this

Text: I'd probably suggest that you try to add about double or more the amount of text to each page. Break it up using paragraphs and headings (wih keywords). Try to add your region or suburb as much as possible.

Will do, I expect that one to take a little while though

Footer: Include your address in the footer and submit yourself to googles local business center.

I had done the latter now have done both (First time writing a new bit of code)

Breadcrumbs: Add in breadcrumbs if you can.

I assume location style will be better than path type, will look into how to do this.

Call to action: Put a contact us link or button on every page (or your phone number).

I had link to a contact form in the top nav bar which got bumped when I expanded some of the other names, so I have since reduced them again to get it back. Are you suggesting additional links in the page content to this?

Flash: Flash images don't add anything to SEO. I'd suggest removing the flash and using images or putting some keyword rich descriptions of the images inside the <object> tags if possible

I kinda like my flash banner, will have to think about this one.

Outgoing links: Can you remove the Designed and Developed by link?

Probably, will this help with SEO

Just want to say a big thank you to Greg for all the help, Its much appreciated

tryagain writes...

I had link to a contact form in the top nav bar which got bumped when I expanded some of the other names, so I have since reduced them again to get it back. Are you suggesting additional links in the page content to this?

This isn't really for SEO but more about conversions. If you do manage to attract people to your site it has to be as easy as possible to buy your service. A text link will suffice but I personally like buttons. They work best in the visual focus. This will be the main content of your page, not the nav bar as the flash banner seperates it alot. The text would be something like this (obviously depends on your business): "Need <service>? Give us a call!" or "Want a free quote? We'll call you!"

I should point out that I have really only been talking about "on page seo". There are a number of other factors that will lead to your success. These are getting quality backlinks and choosing not competitive but high success keywords.