need help, some optimisation questions

I also agree (as catanich said) that you should refocus your title, description, and keywords. They do look spammy. What's good about your competition, is that theirs also looks spammy. If by chance, you can clean yours up, keeping it relevant to your content and intended search terms, you may just bump up to the #1 spot in Google. It's not an impossibility.

Might I suggest using the following tool to compare your site with your competitors? It will give you a glimpse of their on-site optimization, and allow you to attempt to surpass their efforts, subsequently promoting your site to a higher position in rankings.

http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/

(Select "Googlebot" from the drop-down menu)

I believe there are other tools similar to this one, as well. It's a good guide for how to make your pages the best they can be. I use it so much, and find it to be very helpful.

 

thanks for reply, i checked my title with the tool you supplied and it says my title is too long, do you know of any tool that i can type my keywords into that will generate a good title tag, im very nervous about changing it and it having a negative effect, although i guess if that happens i can always change it back

 

I am unsure of a tool like that. I always manually write my titles, and tweak them as the tool may suggest. If I were you, I would do a title something like...

Gold Coast Fishing Charters | Deep Sea Fishing Brisbane | Australian Charters

Then, your description something like this...

True Blue Fishing Charters, Gold Coast, Australia. Fishing charters in Queensland and Brisbane; deep sea reef, game, and calm water estuary. Call (07) 55109622 or e-mail truebluefishing[at]bigpond.com about our fishing charters.

And so on...do not be afraid to tweak your title and description. The more user-friendly your title and description are, the more likely you are to draw a click from potential clients. Write inviting and informative titles and descriptions, so users will want to click your site over your competition. An added bonus would be inching your site up to the top spot.

Best of luck!

 

I am not sure first position is always best, I think many people 'scan' the first few links on the search engine before clicking on one I think if you are in the first few you will be noticed in a similar way to first position, possibly more.

 

It's true. The first position may not garner the best results ALWAYS, as we would expect. Some people have said that when their site went to #2 from #1 for a short period of time, they received 40% less traffic, which is substantial. However, others have said that when the same thing happened to their site, they saw a decrease in traffic, but not in sales. Someone even went so far as to say that they experienced "tire-kicker" phenomena in the top position, and found that more serious buyers actually only browse through the first site or two, and then go further down the list to actually make the purchase. In this statement they said they prefer not to be positioned in the top spot of Google; not even for AdWords.

I will reiterate. The best thing you can do for your site is grab the attention of potential visitors right out of the shoot. This is done by serving the absolute best and most relevant information about your site in the title and description tags. Make them want to click on your site, and make them want to stay on your site by providing fresh, relevant, and original content on your site.

 

Thanks for your reply Tara, i will try what you suggested and see what happens