Hi I would like some help or advice. I'm not a professional and i have just been completing some SEO for my girlfriends dads company i've just been using search engine optimisation an hour a day as a source. However i have been trying to get the term electrical contractors ranked higher on google as this is a good search term. We had an about us page which i recently changed the text/copy to give it a better weighting to electrical contractors. I noticed that it finally got indexed on the 24th December 2009. However i cannot find it anywhere on the google search ranking. However the home page does come up under the term electrical contractors (about 13th page in) but i think this is mainly because of the term electrical. I don't want to change the home page as i've managed to get this on the first page under electrical contractor (notice difference of s on end) I was wondering if i have completed something wrong or i need to wait more time or because its not a home page it just takes longer to rank. http://www.emselectrical.com/index.php?page=about the link is above to the page. I've looked at competitors around and although i'm unsure as to the links they have received which might determine better ranking (although i doubt it as people do not generally link to electrical contractors) I thought i was doing better SEO when it came to looking at the source code. Maybe i'm just being impatient and need to wait but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Cris
Well, first of all, the terms 'electrical contractors' and ''electrical contractor' are a very, very competitive terms. You're going to thousands of strong backlinks which give you a very strong PageRank, along with quite a bit more on page optimization to come anywhere near the first page of those search phrases. And I hate to rain on your parade, but, your home page, www.emselectrical.com, does not appear on the first page for the term 'electrical contractor' (no s on the end). What you are seeing is google's new 'personalized search'. Use a proxy server and do the search, and you'll see that you're nowhere near the first page. Google puts you there when you search from your PC because you've visited that site frequently. IMO, you're should start with a new set of key phrases that are more realistic. Perhaps target more long tail keywords. These will have much less global search volume, but you'll have a more realistic shot at gaining the first page. If you're dead set on the key phrases you have, you're going to have to do alot of work and spend alot of money. You're on page optimization is lacking in several key aspects, and you're going to need thousands of backlinks. And many of the the backlinks you get need to be from quality, relevant pages with strong pagerank.
Hi SelectSpan I checked using the below proxyserver (link below) and we are on the first page (Google UK) last one on first page unless i'm doing something wrong. I've also used worked computers and checked other computers and it is on the first page. If you look at the other companies around I'm pretty sure they have not spent that much money to get optimised if you could let me know what areas you feel it is lacking this would be appreciated least i can certainly make a start. http://freeproxyserver.net/index.php?__script_get_form=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5nb29nbGUuY28udWsvc2VhcmNo&hl=en&source=hp&q=electrical+contractor&btnG=Google+Search thanks Cris
Hi SelectSpan (Sorry i couldn't edit my above answer pretty new to the forum) I checked using the below proxyserver (link below) and we are on the first page (Google UK) last one on first page unless i'm doing something wrong. I've also checked the work computers and checked other computers and it is on the first page. Also terms like commercial electrical contractors we are on the 10th page not great i know but i feel I'm doing something half well but unsure on the other half hence my original question. Obviously if people search for electrical contractor/s the majority of people in the UK will check the UK option rather then world. If you look at the other companies around I'm pretty sure they have not spent that much money to get optimised, i know this is quite vague and a sweeping statement to say but some of them are just one man basic sites. If you could let me know what areas you feel it is lacking this would be appreciated least i can certainly make a start. http://freeproxyserver.net/index.php?__script_get_form=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5nb29nbGUuY28udWsvc2VhcmNo&hl=en&source=hp&q=electrical+contractor&btnG=Google+Search thanks
Ah, I see, you're using the local version of Google. Yes, it's much easier to achieve the first page there. Much fewer clicks as well, but that's to be expected. Even there ,though, that first page is full of PR5's and PR4's. I'd say you're lucky to be on that first page. I don't see why you don't think they've put alot of time or money into their link development, as sites on that homepage have thousands of backlinks, many of them are very, very high quality with strong PR. The are only two other sites on the home page that haven't invested heavily. Everyone else has invested either a ton of time, or has a decent budget.
You have almost no on page optimization. You need.. - Your key phrase to be the first thing in your title. If you want to optimize a page for 'electrical contractors', then your title of that page should start with 'Electrical Contractors' - Your key phrase to be in your URL. If you want your about us page to rank well for 'electrical contractors' then you need to have 'electrical-contactors' in your URL. For your homepage, there's not much you can do, but you can certainly put it in your about us page. - your key phrase need to be in an h1 tag, and it should be the first text on the page. I'd also put it in your text content at least twice, once underlined, and once in bold. - you key phrase needs to be in the anchor text of links on *other* pages of your site that point to your targeted page. For example, if you want to optimize your 'about us' page for the key phrase 'electrical contractors' then you should have links on all pages that point to your about us page with 'electrical contractors' in the anchor text. - your key phrase needs to be in an alt attribute of one of the first images on the page. Once you've got all of that done, you need to build a few hundred external, one way backlinks from other sites to your targeted page with the key phrase in the anchor text. You want one way backlinks on high quality, relevant pages with strong PR. That should be enough to get you started.
Hi Selectspan, Thanks for the quick response that will certainly get me going and appreciate your time in helping out a beginner. Out of interest the about us page, is it quite easy to change the URL to include electrical contractor I'm just using fetch software to change copy at the moment or should i just ask the web developer guy how much this should be to change. I'm hoping to learn things myself. Also just a quick one back to the original question the about us page that i have recently changed more weighted to electrical contractor do you think there is any chance of google ranking this as it stands? Once again thanks SS Cheers Cris
It wouldn't be hard for me to change the URL, but I'm a programmer. I don't know how hard it would be for you to do so. Better ask your developer. As for getting your about us page to rank for that serp, it's certainly possible. And it's even easier if you're only worried about google.co.uk. But in order to do so, you'll need a good bit of on page optimization, and a good amount of time spend building quality backlinks.