Someone please check out my site?

ecobeans.co.uk

This is a relatively new site, i've been doing SEO work on it for a couple of months now.

I've submitted to hundreds of free directories and done a few press releases. We fluctuate from pages 8-11 in Google but rank #1 in Yahoo for the keyword Eco Shop.

I don't believe we have an Analytics account running for the site, but according to the owner we have been seeing increases in traffic but still no sales.

Is there something glaringly obvious that i should be picking up on? I'm aware there's lots to do on the site but i just wondered if one of you lovely people could give it a glance and give me your thoughts.

Many, many thanks.

It looks like the site in question is http://www.ecobeans.co.uk/ http://ecobeans.co.uk/ does not correctly redirect.

Out of curiosity is the term Eco Shop really worth anything? I would never search for any of the products on that site using the term eco shop (but then I am in the US so their are cultural differences).

The term 'eco shop' gets about 2,000 searches per month and it was just used to target people onto the homepage.

I have optimised each product page, category and sub category according to products, but it seems i need to build a few more backlinks to these pages before i can start doing damage.

"The term 'eco shop' gets about 2,000 searches per month..."
Compared to what volume for other terms? Are those buyers or some other type of search?
70 people a day isn't much. At least not in my market. I don't know about energy saving devices.

Looking a little more at your site IMO it looks like a bit more work on the sales pages might help you as well. I see chimney balloons but nothing stating how they save energy or how to size them (for example). And some of the text reads to me like it is 'ESL' that is never good for building trust.

The reason i chose to optimise the homepage for 'eco shop' is that it was one of my first projects as a freelance SEO consultant, and it seemed to be the least competitive term to sum up our site without being so uncompetitve as to be a pointless exercise. The market area will never attract the same amount of potential customers as web design for example i guess, it's pretty niche.

'ESL'? English as a second language you mean? I'll definitely look into changing the text if that's how it comes across.

There are product summaries but these come from our supplier and i've been told that changing them would be pretty difficult, it's all done through data import.

Any other thoughts?

Yeah some of the text comes off that way. It may be the way you are working in keywords. Have someone you know who has never seen the site read some of the text. Preferably cut and paste it into a text document and have them read it there. Then ask them if it seems awkward at all.

Without the ability to change text at any level in your catalog I don't think you will get far with on page SEO. Nor do I think you will do very much for your conversion rate.

You need to think from a customers point of view. As a customer I am not likely to be looking for an 'eco shop' the first time I visit. Sure I might frequent one but the internet isn't the mall. I don't walk by your homepage and get interested. I search for something I want.
Let's say I am looking for a solar battery charger. Well I am going to type something in a search engine resembling that. I might or might not know what model I am looking for etc. But I will be typing 'solar charger' not 'eco friendly'. OTOH someone might search 'eco friendly gifts'.

I think your/your client's site needs work throughout the catalog including the creation of better landing pages for more specific terms, and that you need to focus on terms for SEO that are a bit more likely to indicate shopping behavior.

Remember... I could be completely wrong.

Here is my free advice for the week for webstores... Dont ever forget this one, as it is VERY KEY!

Make sure your product pages are unique. It's that simple. Why would you duplicate what the manufacturer has or what other larger stores have? They are going to out rank you, and G will never see your site because it's not original.

I have a store that ranks top 10 for most of the product names it has. It ranks maybe top 100 for general terms. Like realitycheck said, people search for exactly what they want.

Thanks so much for the advice guys. Realityhack, your point about the ESL nature of the text was duly noted and i'm making some changes to the content as we speak.

I'm also optimising for a new keyword on the landing page; come to think of it i wouldn't search for an 'eco shop' either straight away.