I started SEO for my client website. I have added it to all the 3 web master tools (google, yahoo, msn), submitted to most of the directories and search engines, optimized the title and keywords on the meta tag, alt tag, created and submitted sitemaps, still do not see any increase in traffic. What am i missing?
Your client? Someone is paying for this? Well, you're missing loads of things - directories are generally low quality links, and well, most seo-ers wouldn't submit to search engines, but it won't do any harm. Links - with good anchor text - to blogs and forums associated with the niche, (not spam), press releases to major blogs and sites in the niche, a bit of link-bait - some well-placed submissions to digg or slash dot or similar, facebook page, myspace page, twitter, start a blog - just anything that gets the message/and/or links around the web.
You did your part, but the search engines hasn't yet. Just because you optimized the site doesn't mean it will necessarily go high in ranking right away. You have to wait weeks to notice results. Have you covered everything? probable not. You may want to try A/B testing, use Lynx , use a local crawler software to test the site.
Google Page Rank is also important. After you build backlinks to your website, you might have to wait for up to 2 month for Google to update your pagerank of you pages.
I'm personally not a fan of adding sitemaps to old pages. If anything I saw initial decrease in rankings following - in the LONG LONG run it works out fine. I think google penalizes for it... watch SERPS closely and if it drops remove the sitemaps and it'll be gravy.
How old is the site? If it is new, there will be no change in the SERPs for a while (Google's sandbox). Has the home page been indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN During keyword research, did the keyword have traffic? Or what are the keyword you selected. Is there a URL we can look at?
the site is now year old. yes the pages are indexed by google, yahoo and msn. I have not selected any particular keyword, all the relevant keywords i added in the meta tag on the web page. How do i check if the keyword had traffic? please guide me through this. URL is dealpocket.com
To be completely honest, your website does not have much potential. You have chosen very competitive keywords. To get search engine traffic for the term 'free deals', you'll have to compete with over 19 million other websites. You'll either have to choose less competitive keywords or get traffic from somewhere other than search engine rankings. You could keep working at those keywords, but it would be very difficult. You'll get frustrated by the huge investment of time but lack of results. I suggest you do some thorough seo research. Read everything you can about seo. Start with reading about keyword research. The keywords you chose can ultimately determine if your website is successful or not. Ignore joogle's comment saying that you've done your part. SEO isn't about just onpage optimization and sitting back waiting for rankings. It's nearly all about links these days.
That's not true. Google page rank is updated constantly and SERPs are affected by it constantly as well. However, the useless little green bar is updated every few months or so.
Link building is a long term process. You can't just submit to a bunch of directories and think you'll be top in the SERPs in a few weeks. Just keep trying to find places to get links back to the sites. Do some every day and in 6 months you'll see a lot of progress.
Wsitehelp, You will need to select some keywords to target so you can see real improvements over time. I like using Google Adwords estimator. Personally I don't use Adwords but like to use the tool to estimate the traffic. Many other people use other traffic tools, but this one seems pretty accurate. The link is here: https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox?resultcacheid=1194917300595&mode=revise For instance, I used "great deals" as the keywords and set my daily budget to $1000 in the tool (Let me stress that I don't use Adwords, but only use the tool for traffic estmates). The results are here: Traffic Estimator « Revise settings | Download as .csv All estimates are provided as a guideline, and are based on system-wide averages; your actual costs and ad positions may vary. To view estimates based on your keywords' performance history, use the Traffic Estimator within the appropriate ad group. Learn more Average CPC: $1.43 (at a maximum CPC of $3.75) Estimated clicks per day: 279 - 350 (at a daily budget of $1,000.00) Maximum CPC: Daily budget: Keywords Search Volume Estimated Avg. CPC Estimated Ad Positions Estimated Clicks / Day Estimated Cost / Day great deals $1.14 - $1.63 1 - 3 279 - 350 $320 - $580 Search Network Total $1.14 - $1.63 1 - 3 279 - 350 $320 - $580 As you can see your traffic for positions 1-3 in Adwords would be 279-350 clicks (this should be similar to organic searches). Once you have defined your keywords (great deals, free coupons, best deals, whatever you decide) you will need to build some content on your site to target those keywords just don't over do the amount of keywords in your content. Check the "Keywords" topic on this forum for some ideas as to the keyword density you should have. Next you need a good link building strategy targetting your selected keywords. At 1st target your selected keywords, then vary it a little after some time say 2 or 3 months. For example if you chose "Great Deals", the links you obtain should have the anchor text "Great Deals" which contains the link to your homepage. After getting quite of few of these backlinks, changeup and use something like "Great Bargains" or "Deal of the Week" or some other long tailed keywords that you may get traffic on. Google does analyze for the variation in anchor text in backlinks to your site and over time, may not rank you as well if you are strictly harboring only your main keywords in backlinks to your website. Some good link building strategies are article submissions. These are very powerful when an authoritative site picks them up and post your article and links! Another good way to get links is reciprocal links (although a lot of people here say they are heavily discounted, I have greatly benefited from them from related niches). Try to get reciprocals that are related to your niche. A good way is to go to Google and type "Add URL Your Keywords". You will see some auto exchange sites as well as those that require an email exchange. Another method to build links is to post in comment blocks. Type this into Google for some nice .edu blogs: Google query: site:.edu *your niche* + blog. Use Google to it's fullest for those free backlinks. You can always look on this forum in Buy/Sell/Trade for some great offers as well! Hope this helps!!
First check the back links whether the posted links appeared in your back link list or not... If not then find another way to submit your site.... Better do social bookmarking .This will improve traffic