Does anyone have a website? (for business purposes)

quqabita

Hi,
I have looked at your site. Looks great from the aesthetics point of view.
There are a few things that I feel you can do if your intention is to get customers rather than fans.

I dont agree with some of the advise you have been given-eg when linking from your site-use the following style for reasons I will explain later.
This is the best practice <a href="yoursite"> local electrician</a> .This way your links will be seen as "local electrician" rather than the whole long and untidy urls.

This means if people type into Google the key word electrician, they are likely to get your site turning up- the choice is yours as far as the key word is concerned.Remember in modern e-marketing or SEO as it is technically called you try and imagine what kind of words people are likely to search on google or yahoo etc.

Inside your web site, reduce the amount of code and increase content full of relevant stories related to your trade. Reduce images, follow the best practice in arranging your headers-h1,h2,h3 and tag your images.

Try and get as many links from other sites as possible.

Sorry if this is too technical.

Lastly, I would suggest you reduce the image on your home page or reposition it.
Get it out of the way.

Start with what you offer and all the reasons why you are the best guy for the job then other things can follow.

Imagine if my 80 year old dad was looking for an electrician, will he read those flashy words below the image? most people will land on your page and bounce-off as they will think it is a Formula 1 engineering site meant for electrical geeks.

If you want to show more of your skills and knowledge add a blog for those who may want to read more.

I guess this post might raise more questions than answers in some areas but feel free to ask questions, otherwise I have tried to compress a whole industry practice into a few words. it is no mean feat.

That is my 5cents

martin82scott

quqabita wrote: »

Hi,
I have looked at your site. Looks great from the aesthetics point of view.
There are a few things that I feel you can do if your intention is to get customers rather than fans.

I dont agree with some of the advise you have been given-eg when linking from your site-use the following style for reasons I will explain later.
This is the best practice <a href="yoursite"> local electrician</a> .This way your links will be seen as "local electrician" rather than the whole long and untidy urls.

This means if people type into Google the key word electrician, they are likely to get your site turning up- the choice is yours as far as the key word is concerned.Remember in modern e-marketing or SEO as it is technically called you try and imagine what kind of words people are likely to search on google or yahoo etc.

Inside your web site, reduce the amount of code and increase content full of relevant stories related to your trade. Reduce images, follow the best practice in arranging your headers-h1,h2,h3 and tag your images.

Try and get as many links from other sites as possible.

Sorry if this is too technical.

Lastly, I would suggest you reduce the image on your home page or reposition it.
Get it out of the way.

Start with what you offer and all the reasons why you are the best guy for the job then other things can follow.

Imagine if my 80 year old dad was looking for an electrician, will he read those flashy words below the image? most people will land on your page and bounce-off as they will think it is a Formula 1 engineering site meant for electrical geeks.

If you want to show more of your skills and knowledge add a blog for those who may want to read more.

I guess this post might raise more questions than answers in some areas but feel free to ask questions, otherwise I have tried to compress a whole industry practice into a few words. it is no mean feat.

That is my 5cents

wow! thats an excellent description and post quqabita. thanks ever so much for your time and effort!

basically, as i mentioned earlier i have no experience in websites, html and seo etc so im struggling big time. i understand some of the very basics and im picking it up as i go along. As you can probably guess, im not looking for a career in web design, but im looking to get my website finished off to a good standard. so far, i have spent more hours than i can remember on this site and tinkering with it however, someone in the know would have probably knocked it up in half a day.
The site is going to be adjusted and tweaked as per mentioned in this post which was the original intention and to get views from the outside world.
My main issue is the seo and coding etc. My (internet) friend built me this site and im unsure of his experience as he mentions compliling a portfolio. I do rate his work and have seen some of his other sites in the past. He does admit to knowing nothing about seo etc and will not get involved for this reason. This is where im struggling too. The site has been built for me and coded etc as far as im aware, to a good standard. Im unsure as to how to tell if it is not benefiting me properly.
Again, as for the seo side of things, i have done all the work (guess work!) myself and thats the explanation as for how it looks. Its probably far from correct and has been a trial and error situation for me. my main search shot up 37 google pages in a week last time i adjusted it which is cool and i thought i have cracked it. this is not the case for lots of my 'missing results'. Im struggling to find anyone who can help me out without the great expense. at the moment, money is proving tight but the site has to go on. for this reason im hoping to get all the kind advice i can from everyone and compile before letting someone apply it all.

i probably will have tons of questions for you very shortly if thats ok and maybe you could give me some pointers? id be most gratefull of anyone who can look at my pages (i can forward) and get some work done on them.

calling all seo people with a paypal account lol!

quqabita

No worries, here is a quick surgery as a result of looking at your code.
-Page tittle of home page is too long-use a key word
-description of your home page can be better
-meta key word are too many-you have 36! keep them to around 10 and very focussed, eg electrician, leeds, etc
-53 pages are indexed already that is good!
-you only have 47 links -too little and you have not used a key word for these links!
-You have got a google rank of 1 out of 10-not bad for a new site.
- be very afraid of using too much java script as suggested above-it will work but may be use an include for a footer and header so that one line of code will cover all your pages making them identical at the same time.

butlinsmum

I earn just about all of my income online now having given up being a solicitor 11 years ago & I would echo what other's are saying that your site does not jump out as looking like an electrician's site it looks like a corporate technology site. Sometimes simple converts better than fancy!

butlinsmum x

martin82scott

YOU ARE VERY GOOD!

Page title of home page-is this the title we see on google results too?

Description of homepage - text content?

meta keywords-now this is my other struggle. i need to find a way to include many keywords. as daft as it sounds, i have approx 500!!! so if i use my main 10 or so in meta keyword line, where can rest go without rambling in content? do i get weight on the meta page descriptions etc?

47 links-which links do you refer to please as im a newbie lol!

java-does this cover the mouse over links to internal pages etc too? not sure how i can cut this down. is the flash image at top of homepage java related or am i been daft and talking about things i know nothing of? im considering deleting flash at top of page and simply have flash banner with keywords and services but to a minimum. is that a good idea? can this also be given weight by means of tags etc? remember, im guessing haha!

can you please give a little more detail on the header and footers? are these simple text? im unsure of how code is applied to these and how one set can cover each page. also, isnt many very different pages with very different content better?

kindest regards

quqabita

Martin,
You have 53 pages so if each page has different but related content, then each page can take 10 of your 500 key words. In real life:-) you need to pick 5-10 priority keywords. Then focus on them-leeds, local electrician, electrician etc
There are some free tools around that can tell you which words related to electrician are the most sort by web visitors. Another secret? look at your competitors listing on google? which words are prominent? do a simple search and see those above you and those on the sponsored lists on the left of google and above the regular/organic list.
To see your code, simply click on source code on firefox or IE and you will see how your page is designed.We normal mortals:-) non-techies dont see the code.
once you look at the code, you will see;
header,
tittle
and all meta tags.
bye for now.

quqabita

I have come back to say that dont " harass" your designer.The design is okay. Some of the suggestions we are giving you is because you have raised your standards and you want maximum returns. If you didn't all these would not be necessary.Besides SEO or optimising is still new to most people including many coders and designers.
Think of a builder and a furnishing expert. Some builders can build and furnish some can only do one not both.
I hope this will calm you down.

cally6008

martin - send me a PM with your email address

RichyRich

Your PageRank score is also increased by the number of pages on the web that link to you (and the text associated with that link). So for instance, once this page is spidered by Google, because there is a link to Electricians in Leeds, your Google ranking will improve. Some people don't live in Leeds, or require an electrician, so they might need a Tradesman in West Yorkshire or a Sparky on the Aire.

People that live in Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, and Wakefield all live near Leeds and might require some electrial work done on their house in the North of England.

Once your reputation builds you might find some people searching for you directly under MTI or Martin Scott. You would certainly want to come near the top of the list for someone looking for your particular business. There might be more than one Martin Scott, so if they know you're local they might search for Martin Scott Roundhay or Martin Scott Leeds. Remember some people misspell words so might search for Martin Scot or MIA.

Google uses the number of links like those above as part of your PageRank score, as well as the keywords on your site (a number of years ago an online campaign got soemthing like the word "IDIOT" when typed into Google to link to John Prescot's page, and the words "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" to link to a spoof site against the Iraq war. Never underestimate the power of association).

Hope your PageRank improves soon :-)

martin82scott

RichyRich wrote: »

Your PageRank score is also increased by the number of pages on the web that link to you (and the text associated with that link). So for instance, once this page is spidered by Google, because there is a link to Electricians in Leeds, your Google ranking will improve. Some people don't live in Leeds, or require an electrician, so they might need a Tradesman in West Yorkshire or a Sparky on the Aire.

People that live in Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, and Wakefield all live near Leeds and might require some electrial work done on their house in the North of England.

Once your reputation builds you might find some people searching for you directly under MTI or Martin Scott. You would certainly want to come near the top of the list for someone looking for your particular business. There might be more than one Martin Scott, so if they know you're local they might search for Martin Scott Roundhay or Martin Scott Leeds. Remember some people misspell words so might search for Martin Scot or MIA.

Google uses the number of links like those above as part of your PageRank score, as well as the keywords on your site (a number of years ago an online campaign got soemthing like the word "IDIOT" when typed into Google to link to John Prescot's page, and the words "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" to link to a spoof site against the Iraq war. Never underestimate the power of association).

Hope your PageRank improves soon :-)

Hi, thanks for your post and information! its informative and something to bear in mind. i will be adopting some of the things you have said. i have the day off and im finalising the things people have mentioned to go on the new site so my mate can upload them as i only know the basics.
Im struggling to get links to me and have even linked to others who say if you link first, they will link back. these are big and reputable companies and suppliers but they have so far ingored my requests. think ill be removing them now as someone mentioned, why point people away from your site!
my site has had tons of traffic now for a month or so and it shot right up to page two on google and has been doing better than ever for a long time. whilst this has happened and traffic has been on the increase, my site has just now dropped from page two to page four overnight! google baffles me! i did ask family (at all different addresses) to type in my keywords and click me. if they have done this and say i got 15 people do this at different ip's, surely this can of only helped? i know google is not stupid and penalizes anything suspicious but can this be the cause?