SEO frustration

[1on1 Computer Services]

I know I will probably get slammed for asking this, but I'm at my wits end. I'm trying to learn SEO. I have read through all the forums, spent hours pouring over pages on the net, but still can't understand why this site:
[cgiaquaticcare

ranks so much better than my site

http://www.oceanflooraquariums.com/

The latter site is one I built for a friend of mine. He understands this is a learning experience for me but I would like to show him some results.

I'm targeting keywords like, aquarium maintenance, aquarium service, ...

Any suggestions???

Thanks

 

[hondablaster]

What are the EXACT KEYWORDS your targeting. You can't be general; list 3 and someone can possibly help you.

 

[1on1 Computer Services]

What are the EXACT KEYWORDS your targeting. You can't be general; list 3 and someone can possibly help you.

Aquarium service, aquarium maintenance, aquarium cleaning, saltwater aquarium

Thanks

 

[nonchalant]

Overall it seems your site is better with regards SEO however look into your 2,3 and 4 word keyphrases. The other site has plenty of them while yours has none.

p.s. I found that out simply by running the Chrome SEO extension.

 

[tstegart]

I'm guessing a large part of your disparate rankings has to do with inbound links. Google uses them to rank websites, based on the proposition that the more other people link to your site, the more useful it must be and therefore the higher it should rank. If you have few inbound links, you are either very new or very useless, so you will rank far to the bottom.

If you do a search for links on both sites (these are estimates, because I didn't bother to use site tools), you have about 500 inbound links, but your competitor has about 7600 inbound links. So basically, he's killing you.

If you want your site to rank higher, you need more people to link to you. However, before you go on a linking spree, be sure to brush up on the nofollow tag. It will help you avoid all sorts of problems.

 

[callthatgirl]

Just a thought here.

Add in

aquarium maintenance Jacksonville FL

aquarium service Jacksonville FL

In everything, your titles, tags, title tag, description and keywords. Use 'em up!

Since your 2nd site is on wordpress, get a good SEO plug-in and read this tread I put out some weeks ago.

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43181

It's a nice "how to" do it in word press, works for me anyway.

And for an update...Blogs rank higher faster and be sure to add your Google Authorship! (you can google that to find out how to add it for the owner of the site)

 

[rsarceno]

The reports show you have 279 broken hyperlink. This might be the reason why your page rank is 1 and the other page is 2. But I've seen it too many times where lower page rank were able to beat high page rank on Google.

+1 on Blogs. It will increase your page rank.

As far as SEO, the other site has 46.6K backlinks while your site only have a little over 1.3K. (Give or take 80% accuracy). Try adding more backlinks and even it out between low and high page rank. Too any DOFOLLOWS and high page rank is not consider normal so you need to balance it out.

 

[1on1 Computer Services]

The reports show you have 279 broken hyperlink. This might be the reason why your page rank is 1 and the other page is 2. But I've seen it too many times where lower page rank were able to beat high page rank on Google.

+1 on Blogs. It will increase your page rank.

As far as SEO, the other site has 46.6K backlinks while your site only have a little over 1.3K. (Give or take 80% accuracy). Try adding more backlinks and even it out between low and high page rank. Too any DOFOLLOWS and high page rank is not consider normal so you need to balance it out.

What report did you see this on?

Thanks

 

[1on1 Computer Services]

Just a thought here.

Add in

aquarium maintenance Jacksonville FL

aquarium service Jacksonville FL

In everything, your titles, tags, title tag, description and keywords. Use 'em up!

Since your 2nd site is on wordpress, get a good SEO plug-in and read this tread I put out some weeks ago.

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43181

It's a nice "how to" do it in word press, works for me anyway.

And for an update...Blogs rank higher faster and be sure to add your Google Authorship! (you can google that to find out how to add it for the owner of the site)

Hi Lisa,

I had read through your previous post and was applying some of those strategies to my site. The question I have is; If I add the keyword phase "Aquarium Maintenance Jacksonville FL" how to I work that particular phrase into the site content without it looking like I'm stuffing? I can see that being the title, in the meta description..., but don't I need to include that exact phrase in the content?

Thanks

BTW, I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and following his guide lines as each page is built.

Jeff

 

[callthatgirl]

I have been trying to put it near the top and H1 it.

Like this...

If you are here looking for exceptional Aquarium maintenance kits and you are in the Jacksonville FL area, ......"

H1 that, and it should help. Otherwise, I don't content stuff those words, just title tags, tag and description.

I'm sure I have 100's of broken pages, my site got infected with a virus and we are still working on the aftermath.

 

[1on1 Computer Services]

I have been trying to put it near the top and H1 it.

Like this...

If you are here looking for exceptional Aquarium maintenance kits and you are in the Jacksonville FL area, ......"

H1 that, and it should help. Otherwise, I don't content stuff those words, just title tags, tag and description.

I'm sure I have 100's of broken pages, my site got infected with a virus and we are still working on the aftermath.

So it doesn't have to literately read "Aquarium Maintenance Jacksonville Fl"?? There can be other verbiage in the sentence?

I know the Webmaster tools show a few broken links, but not hundreds. I would like to see the report he mentioned.

Thanks Lisa.

 

[Velvis]

Could someone explain how linking to other sites works? I mean realistically what types of sites would one link to a computer website?

 

[callthatgirl]

here is where I would place Aquarium Maintenance Jacksonville Fl

Title of a page (but make this one Aquarium Maintenance Jacksonville Florida)
Title of a blog (make this one Aquarium Maintenance Jacksonville FL)
It's not good to have a blog and a page the same title

Then put at the top of the page/blog the description and actually, I put in more sometimes. H1 this...

If you are looking for the best aquarium maintenance kits sold in the Jacksonville Florida area, you have not only a great return policy but a knowledable expert staff to help you with cleaning kits, home services appointments and saltwater expertise.

Something like that.

Then tag
Saltwater Aquarium Experts Jacksonville FL
etc...

 

[1on1 Computer Services]

Thanks Lisa, I'll put this to use.

 

[tstegart]

Could someone explain how linking to other sites works? I mean realistically what types of sites would one link to a computer website?

You've got it right its hard for a small computer shop to get inbound links. That's why a big company like Best Buy can rank near the top, because their marketing department gets the word out and gets a lot of links.

Its also why you always read about the whole "you need a blog" thing. People link to useful content, so if you have useful content on your site, then people will link to you. If you're marketing, getting people to talk about you will usually result in links.

Some businesses are easier than others. Bloggers are forever guest posting on other people's blogs, because it results in a link back to the blogger's original site. A computer repair shop is tough. I should point out that the owner of Technibble is a nice guy, and he hasn't set the no-follow tag on forum signatures. So you get credit when you help out in the forums. That's not always the case with every forum (and a lot of blogs and social sites use no-follow tags in the comments now, to combat SEO marketers).

I should also point out that not every link helps you. Google's algorithm gives sites rankings. A useless, low ranked site will not help you much if it links to you, it may even hurt. Having a high quality site link to you once will immediately boost your rankings. This is done to combat link farms, set up by shady folks to boost the rankings of sites with thousands of pages that link to whomever is paying them. Google now penalizes this.

There are quite a few tutorials online if you're interested, plus you can probably find some sort of SEO for dummies book at the library which will be useful.

 

[rsarceno]

What report did you see this on?

Thanks

There's a lot out there. For free version Google Analytics and Microsoft SEO Toolkit v2.0 is good starting point.

I like Seo SpyGlass to analysis your competition. This will give you some idea how much SEO you need to do. Several people doesn't like it because they expect the apps to give them step by step instruction what to do. It's not 100% accurate but it's better than nothing.

Since your using Wordpress, you should be able to find some plugin for SEO Reporting.

 

[rsarceno]

You've got it right its hard for a small computer shop to get inbound links. That's why a big company like Best Buy can rank near the top, because their marketing department gets the word out and gets a lot of links.

It's not easy but it's not impossible. I'm not an SEO expert but I don't think it's base on number of back links. Best Buy and Anti-virus company have more backlinks than my website but I beat them on two word key phrase. I concentrate more on Quality and ratio that quantity.

 

[callthatgirl]

After I get all three of my SEO projects in action, I'm going to work on industry related backlinks with cross partners.

For example: I have a Joomla specialist that markets with me. She has a landing page on her site for me and vice versa.We also SEO'd the crap out of both pages so when you Google "Custom Joomla Minneapolis" she comes up on page 1 (I think!) from my page that goes to her page. I have a few others I'm working with on that. so what I think works good from what I hear...is industry related backlinks are favored. I might be wrong, but that's what I read once.