Hi, - I've always been good at getting websites high in the Google charts, in fact at times embarrassingly good. As entertainment professionals we have recently started a line in Wedding Entertainment. This is probably the most difficult word to get a high position on of anything I've ever known. I guess it's because it's a time in people's lives when they have big money to spend, so everyone wants a slice of the cake (!!). I've tried everything - 'invisible' writing (i.e. white small type on white pages), constant references to the 'W' word next to areas we trade in - but still no luck in getting past all those Agencies and sites for Brides! Any suggestions?
Probably just change the keyword you are trying to target and go for some with less competition. Try wordtrack or keyword discovery out.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html I'm guessing the accidental SEO you did was a long time ago! This is old school NO NO.
Wedding is a MAJOR sandbox word (I have a wedding site that gets great traffic foir everything without the W word, kicks the arse off all the other sites for the same key phrase, but is showing no where), and I can assure you this site should be first page with its eyes shut! Get on with adding content, add links as normal, seek out the non W word phrases then sit back and wait. There is nothing else you can do.
Thanks TFMG, I had never ever read these directives by Google. I originally set up my sites a long while ago when you had to submit to Google Arts and Entertainment listings. Things have changed.
is wedding really a sanbox word or is it just really competitive? everyone wants that word - from movies to wedding sites to major portals.
I don't want to start another 'sandbox thread/ageing delay etc' But wedding is certainly a competitive word, and it appears to impact on other ranking factors. I have sites that rank no problem for it, yet the new site is sitting there non existent as yet, and to my mind it 'should' certainly be there.
To just widen this subject a bit. Ever since I've been using Internet for business (April 2000) I've always used web building programmes called SERIF. I have the 6 and 8 series at present. They have some absolutely great features built into them. As well as FTP you can enter the title, description and search words for your site. This has partly been my secret of success with search engines. I know nothing of HTML. Are there any others on the market similar to Serif I wonder? Best Wishes.
Yes, I would lose the hidden text and black hat techniques, gain some inbound links that are using that anchor text, and have a few images that have an id and alt-tag that use the wedding term(s) - the same could be done for a table; giving it an id and summary.