How does Actinic compare to other carts?

[paulie555]

What drives you to outsource your SEO when using Actinic?

Hi Daren, I started building the site almost a year ago, and in that time so many other sites in our niche have popped up. Not only that, I hear the top sites, those on page 1 of google, are outsourcing their seo. I believe I can handle the onsite optimisation, it's the offsite side of things that concerns me if we're to compete.

[RuralWeb]

it's the offsite side of things that concerns me

Its far better if you do that yourself as well as many seo companies will get you listed on bad neighborhood sites. There are many scams going on in the link marketing world.

[paulie555]

There are many scams going on in the link marketing world.

Yes, I do realise that. At the moment, I'm not sure how we could even get close to the top players. I know some are buying links on high PR sites, they've been reported to Google, but nothings been done.

As for the sandbox, I thought until a few days ago we'd climbed out. At the end of may our visitors increased a lot, almost doubled, now we're back to the same ammount we've been getting for the 4 months previously.

[los_design]

Yes, I do realise that. At the moment, I'm not sure how we could even get close to the top players. I know some are buying links on high PR sites, they've been reported to Google, but nothings been done.

It is not rocket science. SEO is 95% common sense, 5% controlling factors outside your remit.

The big players IMHO are mainly where they are due to the amount of affiliate programmes they participate in and as such the number of links help point them to the top end.

However, that said, many, many BIG NAMES have very poor SEO and using the longtail approach with some good, sound results can be knocked off the top...

How do I know, I am no SEO expert but I do possess common sense and for many of our items (and those of our clients, this TTS example is ahead of the manufacturer!!) we either go toe to toe with the likes of PC World et all or indeed rank ahead of them for products....and they are a tad bigger then us...anyone want to buy a computer? (link for example of a random result, takes you to a google listing not a product)

It can be done...as long as you take the correct approach.

As for offsite topics, build it right and the rest will follow (with a little push of course)

[Stereo Steve]

You will often find that the really big players in any sector use generic text provided by the distributor or manufacturer. Often, a lot of their products go supplemental because they can't be bothered to create unique text. If you can find the time to do this, you can get the jump on them for individual products.

That said, it's a balance between spending time creating content and spending time doing other promo work to get traffic that way. I prefer the first although we are having major success with adwords since putting some serious time to it.

[chris ashdown]

Please dont forget you make your site for your customers first and foremost and then SEO

No use being No1 on all search engines if nobody buys

I also think Adwords helps though Google says they are unrelated (Chinese walls etc)

[los_design]

Please dont forget you make your site for your customers first and foremost and then SEO

No use being No1 on all search engines if nobody buys

I also think Adwords helps though Google says they are unrelated (Chinese walls etc)

Spot on Chris, and I also think there is a link between GA and organic 'preference' for want of a better word.

[Stereo Steve]

I'm sure google won't do anything to discourage that particular rumour.

[plantsforshade]

Hi All

We did do some trials last Summer, turn adwords of wait a couple of weeks or so and test positions, turn it back on etc. To our satisfaction their is a direct correlation between paid and organic search results and have since factored that into the equation of ROI for adwords. It tends to mean we have adwords but at a much lower rate than their recommended spend.

Regards

Nigel

[RuralWeb]

their is a direct correlation between paid and organic search results

The reason for this is using the content network which increases backlinks to the landing page and so improves serps. If on page seo is poor then this does seem like there is a link but if on page seo is good then when adwords are turned off there is no difference.

[Stereo Steve]

So Adsense links count as backlinks? Very interesting. We have started to create an ad group for every product as soon as we list it on the site. We have seen a good increase in sales as well as steadily improving serps and finally we are starting to solve our supplemental issues although I put a lot of that down to the dedicated server and unique IP we have moved to.