SEO Advice

[Mike Hughes]

Quicker results than I expected.

Mike

[Brightstar]

Hello - again,

Well, I'm baffled

I have followed the advice of those that have replied to this thread, and I seem to be getting nowhere for my main keyword MASONIC REGALIA.

Annoyingly, I was number 4/5 in the natural listings on Google and now I am number 12

Strangely, I do well, and always have for MASONIC SUPPLIES (number 2 in natural listings).

I have H1 tags for that MASONIC REGALIA, it is included several times in the body text, links, and alt-tag for the header image. I have a Google sitemap, listed in DMOZ, my page speed load time is 94/100 etc etc.

Driving me mad - and possibly costing me lost sales - has anyone any ideas PLEASE?

[cheaptents]

it could be something to do with:

- huge meta description
- revisit-after ... dont tell a bot when to come back it will do this itself
- inline css (doesnt directly effect seo but its just a good idea)
- a fairly low text to code ratio (more content needed?)

most likely page to rank for this would be http://www.acaciamasonic.com/acatalo...egalia-UK.html

but there is almost no real textual content here, just a heap of links ... google wants content my friend not just links which on your website there are more than there are normal not text links it would appear

looks in at http://www.acaciamasonic.com/acatalo...t-Regalia.html
has so many <strong> tags it is untrue.. your content looks scruffy and would look quite spammy to a search bot...


Look here is some advice for content... write it for the user and not for the bot. If you have a category page explain what is in each subcategory (for me if it's a brand page we have a brand history, one categories we have 2 sentences summing it up) ... then on product keep it concise and to the point but talk to the user not the bot. I struggled to read the content for the on and off of bold text and capital letters - it shouts spam

hope that helps

[leehack]

Every page title starts with the same two words, presume you have no page titles in either.

[Mike Hughes]

Having sorted a lot of the structural things I'd be looking to add more authority to the webpage. A the simplest level, more incoming links with 'Masonic regalia' in the anchor text from a wide variety of sources.

Mike

[Brightstar]

Thanks Guys,

Noted - and being implemented

[Brightstar]

Every page title starts with the same two words, presume you have no page titles in either.

Hi Lee,

Thanks for that. Is there an easy way to amend the Page Titles?

I have SPP and over 1800 products.

Apart from entering each one manually, how are page titles generated in V11, is there a way of doing this globally in the database for instance? The page name is pretty much what I would want - what would happen if I deleted all page titles and left them blank? - does V11 just use the page name as the page title?

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[leehack]

You could do it via a hierarchical import, you'd need to know what you were doing with them though. V11 does do something different in this area, can't recall what though. I believe you are seeing the results of not doing anything as is, this is better in v11 though as i understand, think they changed the order or something like that. Hierarchicals would be my chosen method if i ever found myself in this situation.

[Chunkford]

Hi Everyone,

My website (URL below) has two main sets of search keywords - 'Masonic Regalia' and 'Masonic Supplies'.

I am currently at position number two on Google for the search term 'Masonic Supplies', which has remained static for months. My second, and probably the most important set of search keywords, 'Masonic Regalia', which was until recently hovering around position number four, has today dropped to position number nine, and is in danger of 'falling off' the first page.

As far as I know I have done nothing to affect the sites natural listings. However, now in panic mode, I have made some changes to the page names and titles in the vain hope my ranking will improve.

I have a Google Webmaster account, and have an .xml sitemap. The information there tells me that I have 1952 of 2051 pages indexed, the site is being crawled regularly, and I have just short of a thousand backlinks. I have also spent some time optimising my page load time, and score 94/100 when Google Page Speed is run.

What is annoying is one of my competitors website, ranks higher than mine despite a Google Page Speed of 38. I was mistakenly led to believe one of the last Google Updates was about page load time?

I must admit, SEO is not a strong point of mine, and would ask if anyone can point me in the right diection, or can see some glaringly obvious mistake I am making.

Any replies, or advice most gratefully appreciated

Do you have a webmasters account? If so check your webmaster account and take a look here and see if you can see something really wrong with this picture?

[Brightstar]

Hi Paul

I do have a Google Webmaster account and update the sitemap on a regular basis.

OK I'll admit I cannot see it - there is obviously something wrong - the page names now have hyphens instead of underscores if that's what you mean? - otherwise you got me

[Chunkford]

Click the links and see where they go.

404 pages.
The act of changing the _ to - has broken your site from a search engine's point of view and all your hard work is going down the pan.

Either change them back ASAP or sort your .htaccess file pronto!

[Brightstar]

You could do it via a hierarchical import, you'd need to know what you were doing with them though. V11 does do something different in this area, can't recall what though. I believe you are seeing the results of not doing anything as is, this is better in v11 though as i understand, think they changed the order or something like that. Hierarchicals would be my chosen method if i ever found myself in this situation.

Hi Lee,

I have now managed to alter the page titles to now show only the product name/description which I think should help. I remember buying TASK from Teclan, which I used to do it. However, although they appear to show correctly, on examining the pages in Actinic the page title field is blank, although the end result is as above, I wonder if that filed should have something in there?

[Brightstar]

Click the links and see where they go.

404 pages.
The act of changing the _ to - has broken your site from a search engine's point of view and all your hard work is going down the pan.

Either change them back ASAP or sort your .htaccess file pronto!

Hi Paul,

Doh - missed the obvious

Thanks for your input - tricky business this SEO lark !

However, if you actually click the link, it takes you an 'error' page (404) I created - not sure if the way I have done is strictly correct, but at least they land on the site, and, see the page directing them to the menu above?

The site lost its position well before I decided to change the page names to use hyphens - I was hoping, along with other changes it may actually improve my position?

[Chunkford]

What you have done in respect of your 404 page is perfectly fine, but changing the _ to - wont be helping tho.
404's do not pass juice and are treated as errors. Google doesn't want errors in their index so they will de-index pages. The more pages get de-index the less authority you will be getting.

Do you keep an eye on your competitors efforts? use a tool like majesticseo to see backlinks over a period of time. Your competitors could have done a bit a link building before xmas?

[Brightstar]

Thank you everyone - back on page one number nine - from eleven yesterday