Hellllooo Folks..new site here from newbies needing help with SEO

[plantshop]

When I was considering V9 I thought one of the best features was the ability to get rid of the "acatalog" from the url and make it better for SEO by putting in a major keyword. I assume you discussed this with your designer and decided against it

[gabrielcrowe]

planty, dont flip your wig, ffs, its only a commercial and mike, he's right, your comment does not mention that, your edit does.

handbags at 10 paces?

[gabrielcrowe]

lol, then i'm guilty too, many apologies, i completely missed the edit part.

something subliminal about stars and mentally inserting comments.

hahaha,

[Darren B]

Woooooooooo I got something right. Im off to start an SEO business now

LOL - dont forget to come back here for all the free advice when you get stuck

Actinic Forum Disclaimer
Please take everything i say with a pinch of salt, im am only messing unless i say otherwise

[Mark H]

When I was considering V9 I thought one of the best features was the ability to get rid of the "acatalog" from the url and make it better for SEO by putting in a major keyword. I assume you discussed this with your designer and decided against it

We discussed this recently, and I suggested that approach, however I was persuaded that this might not be a good idea as it could duplicate keywords. I decided to go with something bland like "products" or "shop"

[plantshop]

All this thread is saying to me then is that its all been said before and the op should be reading all the previous SEO posts on the forum.

Sorry Mike I guess both gabe and I missread the earlier post. Can I edit my post I made about you??????

[plantshop]

Another (WHICH I KNOW HAS BEEN MENTIONED LOTS BEFORE) is that you are using acatalog/index.html as your home page. This is bad for SEO as it the root index which google give best results for.

Head down - hard hat on

[plantshop]

LOL - dont forget to come back here for all the free advice when you get stuck

I have been lurking on the forum for many years and reading every post made by ruralweb before he left.

Everything anyone needs to know about SEO and Actinic is already here

[yeomtom]

PHEW! wow thanks folks masses to respond to.....

many thanks folks for so much advice so fast....
thanks to all

I'll' try to add some responses to some things here but it might be skimpy as i have to run out in a moment but here goes

1) guccj says lose the text above the bar and make the banner text below html


thanks guccij, we were told to put the text up there so google can see it easy but dont like it there much. we are in fact due to change the banner text below to html but are waiting for our web developer to get the time (next week prob)

if we do this html can we dump the text above the bar happily then?

2) plantshop says

The buy button has no rollover so there is no indication that it is active

THANKS PLANY WE LOOK AT THAT

There is no checkout button

WE LOOKING AT THAT NEXT WEEK ACTUALLY. GOOD ONE.

compression of pics needed

GREAT THOUGHT, HOW DO WE DO THAT?

lose actcataloge in the url

WE DIDNT KNOW ABOUT THAT OR DISCUSS IT, IS IT A GOOD PLAN?

IS IT OK TO CHANGE IT AFTER GOOGLE HAS BEEN CRAWLING US FOR TWO MONTHS ETC?



3) gabriel crowe says


the only h1 in the site, is the header, where the logo is. how about some real words in there?

HA HA. WE'RE SO SEO DUMB WE DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT A H1 HEADER IS
WHICH PART IS THAT?

there are no h2, and there are a few h3, empty tags.

DITTO,

you are missing some meta keywords and tags, i'd pop some in there, unique ones for each page.

OUR WEB FOLKS TOLD US GOOGLE PAYS NO ATTENTION TO THESE NO MORE, SO WE'VE LEFT OFF. IS IT WORTH IT? IF SO I I'LL GET ON IT

i like the 'call me i'm all about shoes' icon on the left bar, below the nav.

CHEERS GABRIEL

- skype

GOOD IDEA, WE CHECK THAT TOO

- pay an seo

GOOD IDEA BUT WE CASH POOR RIGHT NOW AND WE KNOW TOO LITTLE ABOUT SEO RIGHT NOW TO KNOW THE GOOD FROM THE BAD SO ARE SCARED TO CHOOSE ONE.


4) olderscot says (thanks OS)

1. The page titles should reflect what's on the page. i.e. if the page is about 'tango shoes for small feet' then that's the kind of thing the title should say.

ACTUALLY TANGO IS JUST A RANDOM NAME, THEY ARE NOT TANGO SHOES
THE RELEVANT FEATURE FOR ALL OIR SHOES IS THAT THEY ARE PETITE OR SMALL SIZED

2. I couldn't see the keywords or description meta tags. Make sure you include these on the page.

AS PER GABRIELS COMMENT HERE I GUESS, DO GOOGLE NEED THIS ANYMORE? IF SO WE DO IT ASAP

3. There appear to be multiple copies of the same page depending on how you get there. This isn't needed and lowers the position each page will get in the search engine pages.

HMMM. WE DIDNT CONSIDER THIS AT ALL. IS THIS HARMFUL?

4. Add what we sometimes call a 'breadcrumb' trail. This shows where the visitor is on the site ( 'Shoes > High Heels > Tango shoes' etc) and this helps the visitors (tip: and search engines) understand where they are and the structure of the website.

IF WE HAVE SUBMITTED A SITE MAP IS THIS BREADCRUMB TRAIL NEEDED BY GOOGLE?

MANY THANKS OLDER SCOT.


many thanks to all, hope my responses are not too messy and hard to follow

will check back in later

have anice y'all

[plantshop]

we were told to put the text up there so google can see it easy

This is true BUT then Google will see the same text on every page at the begining and it really looks hard at the first 25 words. Soooooo every page will look the same to google

[Mike Hughes]

1. Page titles.

These are a key indicator to google of what the page is about.

Google will only keep pages with something unique on them. Unless you can convince Google that each page is about something different then they'll bin them. This is already happening to many of your pages.

So, structure your website so that each page has a unique focus. Something like:

- Petite shoes
-> high heels petite shoes
--> Colour high heels petite shoes
--> Tango high heels petite shoes
-> Flats petite shoes
--> Sophie flats petite shoes

etc

This way it's clear that each page is about something different.

If 'Tango', 'Sophie' etc aren't something that people are likely to search for then find out what they do search for and structure your website accordingly. Never forget the customer when doing this but they also want to find a clearly structured website, not a random collection of stuff.

2. Yes, you do need the keywords and description meta tags. They aren't ignored and you should have them. Sack your web folks.

- The keywords meta tag do help with Google and other search engines. It's only a small boost but it is there.

- The description meta tag is typically used by google on the results pages. It's a key opportunity to persuade people to come to your website.

3. Multiple copies of the same page.

When google sees two similar pages then it bins one of them; there's no need for them to keep two copies of the same thing. This means that all the links (external and internal) to the binned page are worthless. It's far better to use them to point to a single page where they can help with the rankings of that page.

4. Google's main point of reference for a website is the website itself. A breadcrumb trail helps their algorithm identify the sites structure and, assuming you do it properly, creates keyword rich links that helps each page do well in the rankings.

Mike

[plantshop]

Good post Mike. Which brings me back to my point:

SEO needs to be built into the website when it is designed not added as an afterthought

[gabrielcrowe]

holy shit tom, turn off your caps lock next time, reading it was like standing next to brian blessed.

[plantshop]

compression of pics needed

GREAT THOUGHT, HOW DO WE DO THAT?

Again stuff your designer should be telling you but I assume you have photoshop?. Then look at image ready or the save for web function

[plantshop]

WE DIDNT KNOW ABOUT THAT OR DISCUSS IT, IS IT A GOOD PLAN?

As Mike says you need to sack your designer as this is very basic stuff, I dont even use V9 and I know about it.

IS IT OK TO CHANGE IT AFTER GOOGLE HAS BEEN CRAWLING US FOR TWO MONTHS ETC?

You are now between a rock and a hard place as you are indexed and changing it would break all the pages you have indexed. But 20 visits a day is nothing so IMO you have nothing to loose