Can Someone Provide Me With Some Insight On Improving My Site's Ranking

Can someone review my site and provide me with a little advise on how to get it to rank higher in Google? I've made a lot of changes over the last couple months without much success. My site is currently ranking as follows:

Google - 7th Page
Yahoo - 7th Page
Bing - 6th Page

Of course, I'm trying to be on the first page for my targeted key phrase.

Any suggestions are welcome. I'm trying to learn SEO and really need some feedback on what I've done so far. I thought it would only make sense to work on my site first. So, if I could get my site to rank well, I should be able to do the same for my clients.

my site: plecco.net
keyword phrase: Charleston web design

 

Hmm... Check out your pages for broken links. It seems you have lots of broken links.

 

I shouldn't have any broken links except for the platecost one and I'm aware of that...that should be fixed soon.

 

your on page seo looks pretty good for the most part, you may want to add H1 tag on the home page for the keyword and maybe add a article on the homepage about Charleston web design

if you do those changes then you need to get some new backlinks with the anchor text Charleston web design these new links can come from different web 2.0 properties and articles things like that. Do those things and wait a few days and you should see movement.

 

In regards to your on page optimization, there are several things I'd recommend.

First, as raven2424 said, you need to add "Charleston web design" in h1 tags as close to the top of the page as you can get it. This should really come before any other text on the page.

Second, as raven2424 also said, you should add an article. google loves unique text content, so adding an article about "Charleston web design" is a good idea. In that article, I'd put the phrase "Charleston web design" in there twice, once in italics, and once bolded.

Third, I'd add an alt tag with the phrase "Charleston web design" in it to one of your images close to the top.

Fourth, I'd change all of your 'Home' links to be "Charleston web design home" or just "Charleston web design"

 

I really appreciate your comments. I don't think I'll add the article on my home page only because I want to keep the home page simple, but I'm definitely going to implement the other suggestions. Keep it coming though...I felt like I was shooting in the dark, but now looks like I got a flashlight.

 

In my opinion, the article is crucial. Without it, you won't rank as well.

But, it's your choice.

 

Well the guys ahead of you are somewhat strong. You need to optimize your site some more and gain some backlinks.

 

You should also link put to high trust relevant sites ;-)

 

At first register with google webmasters, fix all the suggestions and errors they give you, optimize your first page for that keyword and add more content on it, because you have a lack of content now.

 

Hmmm...sounds like the verdict is out and that is that I need more content on my home page, which I was trying to avoid, but if that's what I need then I'll do it.

My only thought on that is that I've checked out some of my competitors and one in particular whom ranks #1 in google searches on my key phrase doesn't have much text on their home page either, but I noticed they have a ton of backlinks. So that makes me ponder the question, "Backlinks v.s. Site Content, which is more important?" I'll save that for a new discussion thread.