Hi,

 

I currently manage a small ecommerce site. I generate all my traffic through PPC marketing and have recently tried to rank the site but it doesn't seem to be working can anyone give me advice on what I need to do to the site or off the site that will help my ranking can any see any fatal mistakes I am making?

 

My link

 

thanks

Onsite first thing that hit me was why are you using tables as opposed to css? Would also be using the term 'electric cigarette' instead of 'electronic cigarettes' - as this seems to get more uk traffic - there are a few other terms I've nopticed too where you've selected slightly the wrong one.

 

Would try to use a proper meta description for each product instead of the first bit of text from the onpage production - as an effective meta description can encourage clickthrough.

 

Have you tried a Google product feed?

 

You also don't seem to have many backlinks: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=www.smokesave.com&fr=sfp&bwm=i as according to yahoo you only have 3

 

Just out interest, how much traffic are your currently generating (nosey I know )?

 

Yes I think I may need to switch this to all div and css design.

 

The devices are called electronic cigarettes so this is why we are optimizing for this as once public knowledge is better this will be the top keyword for them.

 

I also will work on the meta descriptions for each product they auto generate at the moment so manually adding them would be better to target the keywords better.

 

The site is submitted to google base but ranking in that is a completely different challenge :S

 

Need to work on the link building any advice there I have contacted some sites with no response competitors seem to be just using link directories to build and free articles. I read these links can damage your site and even result in a ban from google so didn't want to do this but it's what the top rankers are doing?

 

we get over 100 unique visitors a day but this is costly and organic is the way forward.

 

anymore help would be much appreciated.

 

thanks

Pay some serious attention to product page titles and headings for instance the page title on the "lemon" products is simply "Lemon" and that's no use to anyone, let alone search engines. Plus as reallport suggested some decent meta descriptions will help.

 

You're also using images to display plain text, eg product category names and "free delivery on every order...." - convert to plain text!

Pay some serious attention to product page titles and headings for instance the page title on the "lemon" products is simply "Lemon" and that's no use to anyone, let alone search engines. Plus as reallport suggested some decent meta descriptions will help.

 

You're also using images to display plain text, eg product category names and "free delivery on every order...." - convert to plain text!

 

Thanks for the advise I will get onto the old title tags put some keywords in them and make them more useful about the link building is it important to get just relevant links or will any do? the competition that are top ranking just have links from directories but over 100 of them would it be better to get 10 quality link or is quantity more important?

Link directories and linking from articles will not get you banned or harm your ranking, though they are not very effective as they are not quality, relevant backlinks.

 

Your best bet is to visit blogs and forums in your niche and get involved in the community and then add links to posts and your signature linking from different keywords. It's a good idea to look around for high PR Do Follow blogs and forums, as many are No Follow.

 

Think outside the box as well. Think about your target market/user/buyer. What type of people are they. Visit blogs and forums relating to these type of people and post links there.

 

Article marketing can be very productive but it takes time to write articles that are compelling enough for people to link to.

 

Try social bookmarking and social media websites. Setup a Facebook page and a Twitter account and promote those.

 

Don't forget offline methods and word of mouth.

 

Hope this helps.

I would agree about internal linking, Google really likes a site that does this and it helps to get more than the home page indexed.

There are many facets to good SEO and investing in a SEO expert is money well spent if you're sure of the ROI. Google like to keep people guessing and are constantly moving the goal posts google algorithm change. The way you design your site is only one aspect of good SEO.

 

 

The basics are

• keep the code clean and as minimal as possible (say NO to tables! )
  
• Use text for headings, not images
  
• structure your content so the most relevant is as close to the top as it can be. Having your HTML structured so the main content is before any sidebars is a good start
  
• spiders tend to only index the first 3rd of a page (can vary) and will give more importance to content higher in the page so the above points are quite important
  
• update pages regularly
  
• make sure your page titles are descriptive and take advantage of keywords
  
• Use appropriate headings with keywords and keep them linear (eg-H1 before a H2, etc)
  
• Get quality backlinks
  
• Use keyword phrases as well as keywords
  
• keep your directory structure as flat as possible
  
• keyword research
  
• breadcrumb links
  
• keywords in image alt tages
  
• use social sites like facebook and twitter (google crawls twitter like crazy)
  

 

There's plenty more that I can't remember right now

Article marketing, forum posting, blog commenting and blog posting are the best ways to build links and traffic. Social media will help in a better way to brand the name and get the relevant traffic, create one facebook and twitter page and try to get some relevant followers on them.And linking to your article on these social media sites will help you generate more traffic.

Wouldn't bother too much with forum posting and blog commenting, especially regarding backlinks. Most blogs and forums, such as this one, will have a nofollow set up so your links will mean nothing.

 

The possible benefit of driving traffic is negligible when you consider the limited exposure, relevancy and likelyhood of anyone actually clicking a random link. Not really worth the effort of posting dozens of times a day across multiple forums specifically for the purpose of driving traffic. If you're using forums anyway then it can't hurt to have some links but its no traffic magic wand.

 

If your writing is interesting enough and can attract followers, posting your own blog or article can prove fruitful. As can Social stuff like facebook and twitter if used correctly.

 

I'm not a big fan of using facebook for driving traffic though for a number of reasons. The main reason being that people don't go on facebook to buy things or hunt down companies. Those that do follow you will likely have got to facebook via your site anyway so its only real benefit is customer retention and information.

 

The same applies to twitter in some respects but there's more scope for SEO as well as driving traffic. It works quite well for sites with regular news and special offers that visitors will be interested in knowing about.

 

Tweeting 'get cheap stuff here href://.......' every day isn't going to endear you to your followers.

 

Just remember, sites like twitter are tools and tools need to be used correctly.

thanks for all the comments I will definately be taking this on board and using divs and the sidebar tip was great thanks.

 

I have gone from page 50 to page 5 so it is starting to work for me thanks.

People here are forgeting another aspect of On-site SEO ; content on your own site. A big part in Google`s algo now is content freshness. Make sure you update your own site with fresh content on aregular basis.

Make articles and post them on your site first,and after it is indexed, rewrite it slightly and submitt it to article directories.