First off, I'm not a novice, I've been able to in the past consistently crack the first page for google results for two word keywords that have always been competitive - I've been busting tail on a site for work and still have not been able to crack the two word keyword "Photo book" for several months - I've written content, I've optimized the metas, I've got a functional and correct google sitemap, the biggest issue is my boss is reluctant to make certain design and presentational changes that could help impact their effectiveness. I monitor it with analytics, we've got adwords that are very targeted, I also use webmaster tools - we're in yahoo directory and show decent in yahoo results, building quality backlinks has become a real chore with todays market... I know I'm not the only one who feels frustrated on a daily basis... I'm looking for just a word of encouragement or advice... Does anybody have any ideas to help bring me onto the radar for the site: http://www.familymemories.com/ (not trying to spam or post in the wrong areas)
Hello... That is a very nice site indeed but when i checked in yahoo for backlinks (yahoo updates much faster the google) you had like 346 LD which is very weak in comparison to the average site. My suggestion would be to write an article or a few actually and submit them to atleast 500-800 article directories as well as start link building by submitting to all social bookmark sites and also submit on a constant basis to web directories as well as same niche websites & blogs. (doing this will help get that backlink count up) We have a new site also (few months) and it has close to 70,000 links already and showing up for thousands of keywords as well as others naturally showing our content on there sites which is helping to move it higher in serps and also bringing close to 1000 unique daily.. If you look in the services section im sure you can find someone to do this work (always check references) as well as check in link sales section for relative sites that can link to you (dont reveal your domain there) Good luck with your site... thx malcolm
Interesting case. Awesome domain name BTW, I would monetize that differently. Anyway, to rank better for the term photo book is definitely possible, the niche has room. Articles is one way though in your case I'd go for a more creative approach. In any case, you have more pressing problems, I'd say, namely increasing your conversion rate. I bet it's really REALLY low right now.
conversion rate is lower than I'd like --- I'm writing articles daily --- i feel that presentation contributes to the lower conversion rate - I've adjusted in many places - I'm pretty creative with getting word out - my thoughts (and this has been discussed ad nauseum) is the design and some functionality issues with the site are preventing us from stomping all over our competition. I'm firstly concerned about ranking well for photo book -- then if conversions don't improve, I'll have more say with design issues that the boss happens to like and not want to change
I think first off you have some more fundamental issues with the site. your meta data is too redundant, you don't need the term photo book 4 or 5 times in your title. Also you have a lot meta names you don't need like the googlebot, author, ect. these just take up space and really don't help. Google already knows to fallow the links and the just makes the page larger. You could also use some more anchor text on all your pages. I think you should fix these little issues first. It's the small details that can really help your site... Then get cracking on the link building and article submitting.
you need to sprad your link more, try to get some links of SB sites, these will boost you most to begin with.
Are you doing any better with the keyword, "photo books"... compared to the singular, "photo book" ? Your title tag starts with that one and I believe that will be the first one google will look at to be supported by the rest of your content. You also have, "photo book" in your Meta keywords line twice. I would remove the extra one... just to keep google from the possibility of seeing that as keyword spamming. You will definitely want to stay on the white-hat side of things... as google does seem to be catching up with black-hat SEO practices.
I would go with the plural whenever possible. Google will pick up the singular of the word AUTOMATICALLY in searches! For example, on my site content (except in my title tags) I use DJs instead of "DJ" (as in "Sacramento wedding djs" ---we have more than one available) In my anchor text I have the word "Weddings" instead of wedding singular. Using plural "kills two birds with one stone" Using the singular means that Google may not rank you highly with the plural!
Design is fine, could be better but it's OK. Functionality or rather lack thereof is the problem. The site makes it very difficult for a customer to order the product. No order buttons on pricing page. No order buttons on products page. No order buttons anywhere. That would drive the conversion rate down.
You can also review your strategies, for an effective strategy for a site might not much effective for other sites. I suggest for you to get along with communities that tackles photos like photographer forums, gallery forums, etc. there's a lot of them out there.
I have seen your website.I feel that your website have some problems regarding keywords as well as design aspect.You have used "photo book" keyword three times so may be possible that Google is spamming that keyword.Second thing is your website is looking very congested.You have used lots of images in your website that takes much time to uploading your website.
If your site is about photo books, then I suggest that your domain should include the keyword for better optimization.
As I have said, I'm not thrilled about the design, but it's not changing at this point - I'll tweak in the keywords a bit --
Yeah I think there is something to be said about site speed. I have a rather large site (each page is 150K+) as soon as they announced the site speed included in rankings, my rankings tanked overnight. I redesigned the template for super fast, about (40K per page). On the pages I made the conversion on, the ranking shoot up overnight.
I always compress all my images, CSS, and HTML. The old 150K files were just a bloated template, I never took time to validate and simplify. I guess big G made me finally find time to do it.
Let me know once you've done it and I'll run a few tests. I'm confident that I could move the site in the right direction but I'll happily give you advice for free.