Does my SEO suck!? www.americangoodies.co.uk

[rich833]

Hi all, I have launched a new website and we appeared reasonably high in Google almost immediately. In order to boost this, I started a hard stint of SEO and have almost finished optimising every product.

However, 2 weeks later, I’m dissapointed to see I have dropped down the Google index.

This is my first time at SEO, so I wondered if I have made any obvious boo boo’s?

Appreciate any help!

American Goodies

[SEO_AM]

First, many brand new sites rank highly in Google for the first several days, then... BANG! You somewhat disappear in the SERPs. Google eventually determines where the new site properly belongs.

If you are new to SEO, please review the information at my signature below. The only thing that truly works in SEO is to focus on getting backlinks from relevant sources. To focus on looking for backlinks that are free and immediate usually is somewhat a waste of effort. Look towards building a backlink profile that appears natural and is better than your competitors. Do this... and you win.

[rich833]

First, many brand new sites rank highly in Google for the first several days, then... BANG! You somewhat disappear in the SERPs. Google eventually determines where the new site properly belongs.

If you are new to SEO, please review the information at my signature below. The only thing that truly works in SEO is to focus on getting backlinks from relevant sources. To focus on looking for backlinks that are free and immediate usually is somewhat a waste of effort. Look towards building a backlink profile that appears natural and is better than your competitors. Do this... and you win.

Hey, thanks for your reply! I had already looked at your back links 101, and had under estimated their importance! Pretty interesting results from Alexa for americansweets and americansoda. Should I just go through the list and see where they have posted?

Also, how have they managed to get a mention with the guardian?!


Did you have a look at my site? Do you think I'm stuffing too much?

[SEO_AM]

I have not looked at your site. Just the fact that you asked whether you were "stuffing too much" alerts me that you likely know almost nothing about 'EFFECTIVE' SEO. Write your content for your reader/user, not the search engine. The opposite was true over 5 years ago. Today... it takes content and links or, for some critics, links and content.

Truly study the information provided at my signature. Once you undestand what you are reading, come back here and ask questions. If you ask about keyword percentages, article spinning, general directories, forum sig links, etc... you will be ignored.... Why? They mattered 5+ years ago... not today.

[SEO_AM]

Don't ever mention Alexa again... You do and I will never speak to you again.

[rich833]

I don't agree. I'm very conscious about writing good content for my visitors. I have made a very time consuming effort to write competent descriptions of each of my products. I have even gone as far to have a paragraph about the history of each product.

Compare that to my competitors, who post the item's name and weight as it's description and I think you'll agree.

When asking about keyword stuffing I was referring to my title/alt tags which I have used to include variations such as "Buy American Candy" and "Buy American Sweets" in the same title tag.

I have spent a long time doing research on SEO and totally understand that pasting a thousand keywords in white font on a white background is no good way to be indexed.

I will however take your advice and read through your guides tomorrow.

I'm assuming Alexa has a bad reputation?

[SEO_AM]

Rich... I now have your attention. Good!

SEO is a combination of pleasing the search engines to the point to where they rank you above the fold of the first page... along with having content that closes the sale. If you do not have both... you fail.

This site, SEO Chat, is the best guide out there. Do some studying, make some changes, bank some money... Then help us teach the newbies. Ok?

[rich833]

Rich... I now have your attention. Good!

SEO is a combination of pleasing the search engines to the point to where they rank you above the fold of the first page... along with having content that closes the sale. If you do not have both... you fail.

This site, SEO Chat, is the best guide out there. Do some studying, make some changes, bank some money... Then help us teach the newbies. Ok?

Using Yahoo Site Explorer shows that none of my pages have been indexed, but shows 2 in links... bad news, right??

[sunblock89]

nice information

<snip>

[Martijn Oud]

I've looked at your site, and no; your SEO does not suck. You have nailed the most important things like the proper use of <h1>, <h2> tags. You are linking to related products, and you've got a good product description. Well done! There is of course room for improvement. Here are some quick fixes;


- Your sitemap doesn't seem to be working correctly, it's not adding all your products. For example; Under 'American Soda' all the products are missing
- In your robotos.txt your are linking to someone else his sitemap
- You should move up your products description ('quick overview') to just below the <h1> tag
- Add microdata tags to your breadcrumbs to help search engines find them. Visit Schema.org for more information
- I'm not a fan of your use of the meta keywords, consider simply removing it
- The 'Search Terms' page is rather spammy

And things to consider;
- Your site is hosted in Russia, you should consider switching to a host in the UK
- 'Email to a friend', 'Be the first to review this product', 'Add your Tags' and 'Add to wishlist' are most likely features not often used by your customers. Less is more in this case. You'd be better off removing them
- Where is the 'Add to cart' button ;)? Try testing different button colours and sizes, i'm pretty sure you could improve your conversion

[rich833]

Hi Martijn,

Thanks for your informative reply!

I will update the Sitemap later today to include all products! Stupid free SEO tool keeps over writing the one my CMS generates!

Thanks for the breadcrumbs tip, will check out that website later today. Is this how I will achieve extra links below my description in SERPS?

I understand that meta data is useless, I simpyl included it to help with cannocalisation or however its spelt! ;)

Should I consider removing the search terms page? I think crawlers have demolished it's use.

Interesting that my website is hosted in Russia as I have just switched to a UK Host... how did you find out this information?

Thanks for pointing out the Add to Cart error, we have just migrated servers (as above) and are having some issues at the moment!

Busy day for me... haha!

Thanks again for your reply!!

[rickeliason]

Hi Martijn,

Thanks for your informative reply!

I will update the Sitemap later today to include all products! Stupid free SEO tool keeps over writing the one my CMS generates!

Thanks for the breadcrumbs tip, will check out that website later today. Is this how I will achieve extra links below my description in SERPS?

I understand that meta data is useless, I simpyl included it to help with cannocalisation or however its spelt! ;)

Should I consider removing the search terms page? I think crawlers have demolished it's use.

Interesting that my website is hosted in Russia as I have just switched to a UK Host... how did you find out this information?

Thanks for pointing out the Add to Cart error, we have just migrated servers (as above) and are having some issues at the moment!

Busy day for me... haha!

Thanks again for your reply!!

This is what I love about this forum; An informative reply (of which I have been inspired to look further into schema.org - well done Martijn Oud for taking the time to put a structured answer together) and an OP willing to act upon what he has learned rather than looking for an easy option.

70% of the threads/answers are a waste of my time but 30% give me a kick up the a$$ and the drive to achieve something today. (p.s. I realise the irony of this answer being in the 70% category!)

[Martijn Oud]

Thanks for the breadcrumbs tip, will check out that website later today. Is this how I will achieve extra links below my description in SERPS?

No, not the extra links. Those are called Sitelinks. See example below;

http://i41 [dot] tinypic [dot] com/rcveo8.jpg
(cant post links, sorry)

With the right markup (Found on Schema.org) and a bit of an authority website I've found you can get breadcrumbs like that pretty easy.

Sitelinks you get when Google is 100% sure people are searching for you, branded keywords in most cases 'Websitename Contact'.

I understand that meta data is useless, I simpyl included it to help with cannocalisation or however its spelt! ;)

Oh, I did not even see your using canonical tag. You should be very careful using this! Have a look at the Mountain Dew page.

This is what you use:

http://www [dot] americangoodies [dot] co [dot] uk/american-soda/mountain-dew.html

This is what the canonical points to:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www [dot]americangoodies[dot] co [dot] uk/mountain-dew-1.html" />

(again, can't post links yet)

That is bad. It removes the extra category. It actually CREATES duplicate content, instead of preventing it. If your using an extension to do this, turn it off!

Should I consider removing the search terms page? I think crawlers have demolished it's use.

Id say, remove it yes. It's basically a tag cloud.

Interesting that my website is hosted in Russia as I have just switched to a UK Host... how did you find out this information?

I used Woorank.com :-).