Hi all, I'm new here and not a 'SEO' pro, knowing very little about it. Have searched the forums and I assume this is the appropriate forum to post. Just need a little advice about this.. Ok I run this site selling watches (not trying to do a shameless plug but for the purpose of describing my problem I'm posting it here, so mods please feel free to delete my post if im breaking any TOS) My website is at http://www.ultraneat.com This is the main page with blog post updates about new watch designs. Another page is at http://www.ultraneat.com/custom-graphic-photo-watches/ This is the most visited page where customers can upload a photo to make a customized watch. This particular page was at number 1 or 2 position for 'graphic watches' for as long as I could remember, out of 7 million results. The ironic thing is I haven't done any SEO or backlinks for this page, or any other page on my website in particular. The only way I get traffic to it is through a local forum whereby I post a link to my website (just ONE forum). It's a 'buy-and-sell' forum and occasionally of course I 'bump up' my thread. I have NO posts on other forums, NO backlink building efforts, NO article marketing etc. I was surprised http://www.ultraneat.com/custom-graphic-photo-watches/ ended up at the number 1 or 2 spot for several months. My first question is: How did this happen? There are 7 million results and I did virtually no SEO. The only reason I can think of is perhaps me posting in ONE forum and occasionally bumping my thread. However, does doing so triumph over the efforts of 7 million other sites, whom i assume are more aggressive than just me posting in one forum? 2nd question: This morning I checked the SERPS for 'graphic watches', and to my surprise its buried deep in the later pages. I'm not even sure if its in the first 10 pages now. Now, I thought maybe the number 1 or 2 ranking in the past was a fluke. But if it was, how did it end up at that spot for at least 3 or 4 months? If it was something to do with Google messing with its cache or some weird stroke of luck landing my site there when it shouldn't have been, surely it would just be there for less than a few days, before Google thought 'hey what is this undeserving page with no backlinks doing at #1', before removing it? Thanks in advance for any insights about this. Have a good day all and thanks for reading! Cheers, Nathan
Do you have a google account? If so, when you are searching on your site via Google you'll often see your site at the top until you clear your 'google web history'. One day I almost popped a bottle of Champagne when I saw my site in position #1 until I realized this. This may also happen if you don't have any Google accounts... dunno I'd be very surprised to find you at #1 with 'graphic watch' as you'd being competing with top porn sites for another interpretation of that phrase or a reversal of the words with 'watch graphic'. I've tried endlessly to find an animation of an ETA 2824-2 to see how my Marathon GSAR works but am always running into problems searching on any combination of some of those words. "animation, graphic, watch' etc. "Watch" and "Animation" don't find what I want and I would suspect you'd be in the same boat with "graphic". Do you have use Google Analytics? It will tell you exactly where you are and where you were in terms of traffic, Page Rank and position in a Google search. If you don't, sign up and add the small line of code to the bottom of your footer. Hope this helps
This Digital Point thread is now first in google for the term graphic watches ( without quotes) @Nathan, how much traffic did you get for the term graphic watches? A look at the Adwords Keyword tool reveals little or no searches for the phrase across the world. As for SERPS, they do tend to fluctuate from time to time. You might see your site back in the top ten within a fortnight or so.
Thanks for your reply melbo9 and your feedback. Yea I am aware of SERPs messing up when you are logged in to Google. Which is why I made sure I'm not signed in to any Google account. I also did the searched at public computers too.
First, the number of search results means nothing. Who cares how many sites have the term, you want keywords people actually search for. There are only 46 exact global search matches for the term "graphic watches" which means even a number 1 ranking will bring less than 1 visitor a day. It is a highly uncompetitive search term and no one else is likely targeting it - so a good ranking should be fairly easy but also a waste of time. You need to do keyword research to find out keywords that will actually bring you the traffic you are looking for.
Wow I can't believe it, digitalpoint's getting top spot now. Apparently this seems to be a very popular site! Traffic from Google for search term 'graphic watches', even when my site was on the first page, was very minimal. Yep there were very little people searching for this keyword in the first place, so I'm not that affected if it isn't on the first page. I'm not losing a ton of revenue from this keyword. Most of my customers come from the forum that I post in. I'll see if they come back up again in a few weeks. If not, it doesn't affect my revenue a lot, since like you said people aren't really searching for that. I'm curious thats all Thanks!
Here is my advice. 1. You need to do a lot of link buildings. Not only the page you mentioned that you never done link building to, your homepage is too. Your site will not rank for anything unless a non-popular long-tail keywords if you have 0 link popularity in Google. 2. Title Tag need to be adjusted - Your site is focusing on watches but you have wasted a title space with nothing. Utitlize it with your keyword not just "BUY COOL STUFF" and remove those "//" sign out of the title too. 3. Your homepage has a little to non content really. Even a single one is text in image. What the....? Please put some real content into it instead of just a bunch of images, or your site would never ranked for any keywords you desired.
Thanks for your advice. The reason I haven't adjusted the title tags and jammed my site with keywords is, most of my customers are referred via word of mouth or from a single forum only. I might start doing some 'on-site SEO' like what you guys here call it, but that will probably not be important to me, because as someone else here mentioned - the number of searches for 'graphic watches' is negligible anyway. Even when my site was on first page for 'graphic watches', I received close to zero traffic from this keyword. Anyway, for some weird reason my site is back on first page again (5th result as of this writing). It has been jumping from #1 - #5, and then gets buried up to page 10 and jumps back again, the past few weeks. I would say for 80% of the time it stays in the top 5. About your point #3 Is anyone able to explain why it is ranked now even though I've not done what Sxperm said in point #3? I've left the site as it is since the last time it got buried in the results. Not that I'm complaining though. Like I said ranking for 'graphic watches' isn't important to me. I'm just curious that's all. I did no SEO/backlinking, except for my forum post which can be found on the 3rd result in the screenshot. My point is, everyone seems to be saying 'your website has no on-site SEO, where are your keywords in your title tags, do some backlinks, put some real content, OR IT WILL NEVER RANK', but the screenshot attached speaks otherwise and it IS ranking for a keyword that I 'would want' (but don't really need). Unless of course it is a Google glitch.