My SERPS seem to be stuck. Is there anything else I can do to my site to get higher?

I have been working on SEO for my site since February (http://www.canvasking.co.uk/) and have managed to get to 18th position for the search term "Photo to canvas" (38,000,000 competition).

On-page

I initially used IBP for my on-page optimization but after I made some changes that were suggested by it after a few months, my rankings dropped significantly. Now that I have them back, I don't want to risk losing them again by following any more IBP suggestions.

What else I have been doing:

• I have been writing a unique article every day and posting it to ezine.
• As each article is approved, I submit it to the 25 top article directories. (I used to spin the articles, but have found it less time consuming to just write a new one each day)
• I have been submitting to web directories via SubmitEaze.
• I have been running daily ranking checks (Am I being penalized for this?)
• I post articles to my own site with relevant H1 tags and keyword rich URLs.

This has raised my rankings to where they are now but I have been having trouble getting any higher.

Can anyone with some SEO expertise please help me out?... LOSING FAITH!!!

1. Is it just the amount of links that I have that is holding me back?
2. Is there more I can do to my site to get onto page one?
3. Should I have concentrated on keywords with less competition first?
4. What is the best way to get high quality links?

If anyone could give me any help I would be really grateful.

Thanks in advance.

Daz.

 

Daz: Looks like you are doing a good job at creating unique content and submissions. You may want to contact some blogs for guest posts. Get involved on blogs with blog comments.

I will do something about your articles section to get more SEO friendly URLs. The articles you are posting on your site don't seem to link back to home page or other relevant sections of the website. Articles don't link to other articles either. Improving internal linking will ensure your articles are indexed faster.

When are you are submitting articles to Ezine and other article directories, are these articles linking to your homepage or you are also ensuring that some links go to internal pages?

Breadcrumbing looks good on the 'store' front. I couldn't figure our why you have two link in footer to 'our designs' page - http://www.canvasking.co.uk/Dirty_Harry_Quote_Pop_Art_Canvas_Print_p/harry1.htm

In footer 'Photo to cavas' links to about us page, I would probably use a link to homepage instead.

 

Hi Jitendraag,

Thank you very much. This is exactly the type of help I needed.

Thank you.

I have done some blog commenting, but I will try some more, thank you. I'm not sure what you mean by "Guest posts"? Could you explain please?

Only my homepage...Should I vary this with other pages on my site?

I know this may be a silly question... But what is breadcrumbing?

I'm not sure. I think it is a page history feature. These are links that are contained within the actual shopping cart software. I cannot change this.

I think I can change the "photo to canvas" link in the footer... But is there anyway that changing this could have a negative effect? It has taken a long time to get here and I don't want to risk changing something that may cause me to lose my rankings....

Thank you for all your help.

Regards,

Daz.

 

Hi Daz -

how many links do you have coming to your site?

You'll need to have a "natural" looking "link profile" so links that just come from EzineArticles will only help you SO much before they don't count any more.

Have you tried searching for high-quality link-sources related to your industry? (.edu and .gov and .gov.uk sites, plus high PR sites)

 

P.s

I have just started adding keywords in the URLs for my articles (http://www.canvasking.co.uk/Photo_on_Canvas_Prints_An_Amazing_Way_s/276.htm)...

Should I change the existing articles URLs as well? (http://www.canvasking.co.uk/Articles.asp?ID=135) To do this I will have to move them to another page. Will that matter? or will that make my rankings drop?

I did think about that. I added the links to my last article (http://www.canvasking.co.uk/Photo_on_Canvas_Prints_An_Amazing_Way_s/276.htm) Again, should I go through and add them to all the others?

Thanks again.

Daz.

 

A couple of things. Your H1 and H2 tags don't seem to be implemented correctly. You seem to have multiple H1 end tags and also have an H2 tag embedded within this. This isn't the correct implementation of the H1 and H2 tags - H2 tags should be thought of like subtitles to your main title (H1) or section headers - don't use them to stuff a very similar keyword to your H1 tag! And how old is your website?

It could well be that your on-page SEO is fine. You don't actually seem to have very many links to your website. You might need to be a bit more aggressive with your link building - the term receives 4,400 exacts in the UK per month on Google so it isn't too competitive to "win" with. Don't give up! How many keywords or terms are you currently optimising for?

Also it may seem trivial but your header navigation doesn't work on IE9 Beta (it doesn't display the buttons) even in compatability mode. This could be IE9 being a pig rather than anything you're doing wrong.

 

Hi James,

In yahoo site explorer it says 400 ish.

I understand. I do the articles mainly for traffic and they have got me quite far, but I believe you are right, I think they have lost their weight.

Do you have any tips for finding high-quality link-sources related to my industry?

Many thanks,

Daz.

 

Yes, you must ensure that you are not spamming these blogs, ensure you are reading the posts before any comment is made.

Read about guest posts on this excellent article - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/01/how-to-guest-post-to-promote-your-blog/

Most article directories allow two links in resource box, you can have one to homepage and another one to an internal page.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=breadcrumbs -- Wikipedia has a good article.

Well, see if you can fix the double links. They might also be annoying to human visitors.

Almost any on page SEO change can have a temporary 'bad' effect. I have seen sites loosing their rank when the title was 'improved'. But the effect was temporary.

 

Do you know what the PR breakdown is for these links? I guess most of them will be 0 or 1?

There are tons of ways to find authority sites, but try searching for these in Google:

site:.com inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "Photo to canvas"
site:.org inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "Photo to canvas"
site:.edu inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "Photo to canvas"
site:.gov inurl:blog "post a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in" "Photo to canvas"

Also, have you found a list of authority sites that your competitors have links from, and tried to get links there yourself?

James

 

Thanks for all your help.

I FEEL SMALL...lol

 

Hi nOOb1,

Thank you.

I was aware of the H1/H2 issue. A guy from America who was running my PPC campaign advised me to enter that. He sent it to me and I copy & pasted... Before I knew much about SEO unfortunately... but again, as I am nearly on page 1 I am scared to change it in case it sends me back down again! I couldn't take starting over!

Any tips? All the link building that I have done has been slow and painful and far from aggressive!... Would you recommend any software to speed up the process? (SeNuke etc)

I have had the site for 3 years (advertising locally and total oblivious to SEO for 2 years....lol, although I made it to number 1 for "Cheap photo canvas" without any effort or link building!) but the domain was started in 2004.

Is this the exact amount of searches for "Photo to canvas"? I only use Google keyword tool... What did you use to find that figure please?

Arrrgghhhh! Typical IE... Fine in every other browser... Thank you. I will sort it.

Thanks,

Daz.

 

Hi jitendraag,

I have worked on the articles and made the URLs more friendly... http://www.canvasking.co.uk/Photo_to_canvas_Articles_s/286.htm

I still have to interlink them all into my site though.

But I have noticed something... (Wondering if you may know please)

When I google the full address of my prices page http://www.canvasking.co.uk/Prices_s/162.htm , it shows the page in the google search results... But when I do the same for a lot of my other articles or pages they do not...

Does this mean these pages are not indexed?

I have a category index so I would have thought google would have found the others.

Can you think why the prices page is listed but not the others (more info page etc)

Thanks in advance,

Daz.

 

You are missing out on so much trust/linkjuice it is unreal. Follow this exactly, every three days get 3 pieces of content. This content needs to be both useful to the reader so they link to it and optimised for your chosen keyword. Go to Goarticles, Buzzle, sooperarticles post one piece of content on each. Tip - Fill your author bio and profile up use your keyword where ever you can. Use a different author bio every article. Get your anchor text naturally placed where you can. Take your site and social bookmark the pages you want to rank for accross as many SBM sites as you can each sbm needs to be optimised for your keyword and the titles and descriptions really need to be unique. Try getting 50 sbms done a week. Then do 30 signature posts accross 3 related forums a week. With your keyword in a topic related paragraph in your signature. Do this for 3 months and tell me your rankings havent increased for that keyword.

 

@Daz: It's possible that Google has not indexed all pages on your site yet. Get some links to these internal pages too.

 

Getting links to deep pages is SEO basics 101 if he has not been linking to relevant ranking deep pages then all hope is lost. Check your internal anchor linking and PR distribution.

 

Hi Daz,

In the last 2 weeks there is not much activity in Google SERP, I think Google is doing some update. Ranks are bouncing around some site's ranks are not stable some are steady at not moving at all, try checking again when the update is finished, perhaps in a week or two.

 

1) Go viral or come up with some link bait ideas.
2) Don't miss out on offline & local opportunities. Connecting with other local business owners can often really help get solid links, leverage the people in your community with volunteering your time, joining a networking group, or sponsoring events.

Nice to see someone sticking to plans around here! I'm sure you will succeed soon enough.

 

such a nice information sharing and thankful to your.

 

get varied sources for backlinking, with appropriate content etc
http://backlinkspro.info/a-beginners-guide-to-link-building/
have a ganders

 

anchor text links for specific keywords and long tail ones in related blogs, your own blogs, directories, articles, press releases and on site SEO