New site, SEO Critique requested... 4

[RISTMO]

Hey,

I'm pretty much done with my newest site --

http://www.genuineautos.com

-- and I'd just like to hear if there's anything that sticks out that I could do to make it rank better. At this point, if you search for "genuine autos" my Tek-Tips thread outranks the real site....something's wrong there ;-).

Any ideas?

Also, I'm going to start a little paid advertising. I'll have about $150/mo to use for it, so I want to use it the best I can. If I get some good turnovers with this, I'll be given more to use. I've never done paid advertisements, though, so I'm not quite sure where to start... Google Adwords won't get me many clickthroughs if I limit it by region. But I don't want to just put ads on any other auto-related site, cause it's a local business, and we don't ship.

Thanks,
Rick

http://www.ristmo.com/

http://www.arabchurch.com/

http://www.genuineautos.com/

http://www.spokaneclassifiedsonline.com/

 

[ChrisHunt]

Not much to say on a SEO front, it doesn't seem to be doing anything too wrong. The only thing I spotted is to add the company name into the <title> of each page. Instead of, say, "2005 Pontiac Grand Am" have "2005 Pontiac Grand Am - Genuine Autos, Kaufmann TX".

There's not much text on the pages for the engines to get their teeth into. How about a page for each model of car that they sell, with full specs and some descriptive text about it?

Personally, I'd just use text for the left-hand menu, I don't see what value you get from using images. At least you've used proper [tt]alt[/tt] attributes for each one. It's not a SEO thing, but I don't see the value of the Business Directory/Website Directory pages. I'd leave that to Yellow Pages and Google respectively.

What's the difference between the "Weekly Advertisement" and the "Manager's Specials"? Both pages seem to be serving purpose. I'd combine them into a single "Special Offers" page.



-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[Volk359]

Hmmm... maybe it's just my browser (IE 6.0) but your content_top.gif graphic seems to center itself on all the pages instead of defaulting to the left next to menu_top.gif.

 

[RISTMO]

Volk -- see if the image displays correctly now. I'd designed the page on Firefox and just noticed it earlier today on my boss's computer.

Chris -- thanks for the vehicle description idea -- I'd said the same thing a while back and the idea was sorta dismissed, but if I bring it back up saying that an expert in search engine rankings said to do it...:-D Question -- would it be better to make a seperate page about each model or just put a little paragraph about it that links to the vehicle's homepage on chevrolet.com or pontiac.com?

Out of curiosity -- why would you recommend putting the company name in the title for each page?

The local business directory idea was to get our name out with local companies by offering them a free promo thing. Also, for them to be able to list their url in their business listing, they have to link back to our website. The web directory is just a links page for trading links. That said, would you still recommend removing them, and why?

The reason for using images in the left menu is that the text is a lot sharper and more professional and stands out much better than it did when it was just text.

The Weekly Advertisement / Manager's Specials thing confused me at first, too. Each week and ad is run with a url to our website saying to find the full ad there. The Manager's Specials...I don't know why they can't be in the other page, for some reason, they're just supposed to have their own page.

Anyway, thanks to both of you for your comments and suggestions. They're much appreciated.

Rick

http://www.ristmo.com/

http://www.arabchurch.com/

http://www.genuineautos.com/

http://www.spokaneclassifiedsonline.com/

 

[jendeacott]

Images displays correctly now in IE6

Find out you can improve your plant security and plant tracking
¦

 

[Foamcow]

The company name in the page titles will assist in people searching for your site by the compay's name.
Page titles carry alot (if not the most) weight when pages are being "scored" for the SERPs.

The business directory may end up doing more harm than good, or nothing at all.
Search Engines tend not to like too many obvious reciprocal links as they deem it an attempt to manipulate their results.
You are (or the site's owners are) in the business of selling cars, not being a local business directory. Stick with the cars!

As for the images in the navigation.
You have a good point about not using HTML text as the images will always look nicer. But Chris also has a point in that the text will be more effective from an SEO perspective.
It is possible to use Farnher image replacement script (or similar) that will put images in the datastream coming from the server but magically the html still shows normal HTML text!

Have a look here...

http://www.targetgroup.co.uk

The navigation onthe right is done this way... they are images. Look at the code.. they are <h1> tags!

The script is a bit fiddly to get working, but is really handy! You can find it over at

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dynatext/

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time

 

[ChrisHunt]

I bring it back up saying that an expert in search engine rankings said to do it...

Who? Where? I'm no expert, but I do know that search engines like text above all else. Anything you can do to put meaningful text on your pages will be good for SEO. It's good for customers too - a potential customer can browse around the virtual showroom picking the model that suits them best. Sometimes the question to ask when considering potential content is "is there any reason NOT to do this?". Is there any reason not to tell people as much as you can about the things you're trying to sell them?

why would you recommend putting the company name in the title for each page?

It's about the only genuinely SEO point I made in the whole post. Engines give quite a lot of weight to the title of the page, so you need to make the best use of it you can. It should push the site beyond tek-tips one for "genuine autos" if nothing else! It's also good branding - declaring the source of each page up-front.

would you still recommend removing [the business and website directories], and why?

Respectively - yes, maybe and not for SEO reasons. People are coming to this site to (hopefully) buy cars. They aren't there to find a local air conditioning company. The "Business Directory" doesn't add any value to the site, and just weakens its focus IMO. Leave this job to the Yellow Pages.

The "Website Directory" is, as you say, a fancy name for a "Links" page - so call it "Links", that's what people will be looking for if they want them. I'd subdivide it into sections - top the list with links to Chevrolet and Pontiac, then links to car-related local businesses - maybe with some text explaining why you recommend them, then links to other local businesses & sites. I don't think there's much SEO boost to be had from swapping links with unrelated companies, but there's no harm in being a good neighbour. Whatever you do, drop that link to the "Megri Web Directory", if they demand a link before listing you, their listing isn't worth having.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[RISTMO]

Foamcow -- that's a really neat idea and would also help for faster loading of the menu.

Chris--You might not consider yourself an expert, but from a client's POV, you're #1 on the SEO expert's list -- and that's all he needs to know ;-). Besides, in a changing world like Search Engines, expert status comes from experience, and you seem to have quite a bit of that ;-).

Question -- keywords in the titles are ranked from left to right, with the first being most important, right? Or at least first phrase? If so, I'd want to keep Genuine Autos part to the far right except for on the home page.

Which also ties into something else (off-topic) --

http://www.ristmo.com

-- I have my company name last in the title on the homepage, and I still rank fine for that. I'm trying to get a ranking (not that it'll bring in many potential clients, but just to do it) for "Rockwall Web Design". So I put those keywords first thinking it would help, and I've been getting some links with that text. But the directories are all outranking me -- for a seemingly easy keyword to rank for -- there's only like 25k people in the city. I was wondering if maybe Google knew that the site was about ristmo designs and didn't care about the Rockwall keywords.

Most of the sites aren't linking back yet, and their 1-week trial is almost expired. So I might just kill the links page. What I was hoping is that the business directory would expand and help us rank well for Kaufman. "Kaufman Texas" is our main phrase that would bring us traffic. Car keywords are too broad to rank way high for most of them.

But many, many thanks to all of you -- especially Foamcow and Chris Hunt.

Rick

http://www.ristmo.com/

http://www.arabchurch.com/

http://www.genuineautos.com/

http://www.spokaneclassifiedsonline.com/

 

[ChrisHirst]

hey I'm almost redundant!

on ristmo.com your title isn't targeting "Rockwall Web Design"
I would rearrange it to "Professional Web Design Rockwall, Web Design Dallas" that gives;
Professional Web Design
Web Design Rockwall
Rockwall Web Design

But as you rightly surmise links and anchor text are what is missing.
one way of checking what you need is to run the same query at Yahoo Web Design Rockwall and we get a No 1 and 2 because Yahoo is more about content than Google is.
The newly added ROS footer links to arab church will help a little but ROS links now seem to have less weight (Feb 2005 update). Rewrite your signature here to
[*link

http://www.ristmo.com/

]Rockwall Web Design[/url] (remove the *) and see if that makes a difference in a couple or three weeks.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[RISTMO]

I'll try that for the title -- weird Yahoo's helping me better than google for lots of my keywords and sites. Used to be the opposite.

Thanks for the tip about urls in sigs -- I've been wondering how to do that. But I can only fit 2 urls instead of 4 now...I guess it's worth it.

Rick

Rockwall Web Design
Arabic Music

 

[RISTMO]

Ok, so I'm thinking I'm going at this the wrong way. Even when I started, I wondered if I'd get much of any hits for the keywords I chose, but now that I have the rankings and no traffic, I'm pretty convinced.

These are the rankings I have -- almost all targeting "Kaufman".

genuine autos		-  2	

kaufman pontiac		-  13,14
kaufman pontiacs	-  1,2	
kaufman new pontiac	-  3	
kaufman new pontiacs	-  1,2	
kaufman used pontiac	-  3	
kaufman used pontiacs	-  1,2	

kaufman chevrolet	-  1	
kaufman chevrolets	-  1,2	
kaufman new chevrolets	-  1,2	
kaufman new chevrolet	-  12,13
kaufman used chevrolet	-  5	
kaufman used chevrolets	-  1,2	

kaufman used autos	-  9

I know that some of those could be better, but overall, I have top 5 rankings. My problem is that I'm not getting any traffic from these, so there wouldn't really be much point in working on them just for an extra hit or two.

So I'm wondering if I should try to target Dallas instead of Kaufman. But just a couple quick searches make it obvious that there are a lot of webpages about Dallas car dealers, and realistically, the chance of outranking them is pretty slim. So should I even bother changing everything over to Dallas and hoping for a ranking on page 7-8 or should I just keep the pages set to Kaufman and hope more people search for my keywords? Or should I keep them set to Kaufman and do some Google Adwords for Dallas? Suggestions? I submitted to Dmoz, but my Arab Church website that I submitted well over a year ago still hasn't been added, so I'm not too optimistic about this one.

I'm just trying to get more traffic. My boss is thrilled with the site and really disappointed with the leads from it. I could use some help.

Rick

RISTMO Designs: Rockwall Web Design
Arab Church: Arabic Christian Resources
Genuine Autos: Kaufman Chevrolet & Pontiac Dealer
Rick Morgan's Official Website

 

[RISTMO]

I just found out that there are a ton of searches for "Kaufman tire" because people mistype "Kauffman tire", the name of a tire company in Atlanta. I could be top 2 or 3 for that search, but my question is should I try to affiliate with them to send them the traffic or what would be best? We don't really focus on selling tires (although we do have them available in the repair shop). And even if we were to sell lots of tires, people are looking for the shop in Atlanta, not way over here. What would be best for something like this?

Thanks,
Rick

RISTMO Designs: Rockwall Web Design
Arab Church: Arabic Christian Resources
Genuine Autos: Kaufman Chevrolet & Pontiac Dealer
Rick Morgan's Official Website

 

[Sheco]

I've seen it done where you just put a link on the top of your homepage that says, "If you are looking for Kauffman Tire in Atlanta click here."

And then maybe email them and ask them to do the same.

Can't say much about the SEO implications of this.

 

[Foamcow]

I would try and do some optimisation for the misspelling on the name but not on tires (if that isn't your business).

You may also want to add something along the lines of what Sheco has suggested.

By sticking the work "Atlanta" on your page you are actually going to attract traffic (although minimally) that you wouldn't have got previously!

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time

 

[Sheco]

Doh!

I didn't think of that!

 

[RISTMO]

How about this?

Kaufman Tires

Rick

RISTMO Designs: Rockwall Web Design
Arab Church: Arabic Christian Resources
Genuine Autos: Kaufman Chevrolet & Pontiac Dealer
Rick Morgan's Official Website

 

[ChrisHirst]

1/ get a Wordtracker account. You would be surprised what shows up. 1 day will only cost you $8 and if you use it well it can earn that in the first day.

2/ There isn't enough pages indexed yet to start really stressing about it though.

Ok You need to look at this from a different angle. picking up traffic randomly isn't going to make any difference to the ROI. Forget going after "w*lly waving" phrases, 0 searches makes 2nd from 1M useless. You have 14 pages indexed targeting that phrase 1 would be enough. Because it's the business title and should be the branding phrase, 3 pages for now will do Home, Privacy & Contact.

Get more specific, your listing pages are an example. the title is (of one)
2005 Chevrolet Equinox .:. Genuine autos etc
lose the branding and get 2 useful phrases in there.
and use - (hyphen) as a title separator not .:. it might look pretty but it doesn't help much. It splits phrases up so if you are working on concatenating words into a third phrase, - is treated as a space. (It's a bit like the fad of stars and hearts in the title that lasted about 3 weeks)

Chevrolet equinox gets around 40 searches a week (competing pages < 250,000) easy top 5 spot that.

Get your listings pages nearer the home page, at the moment they are 3 clicks away, It will take a lot of links to get the crawlers to go that deep in a short time.
write some code to create a sitemap of listings from the database and link it from the home page, just as long as it doesn't need any parameters.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[RISTMO]

LOL. I must have misunderstood. I just went and added all those "Genuine Autos" things to the end cause I thought I was supposed to do that for the branding.

I used the Wordtracker trial a few times and didn't really find anything interesting. Perhaps that's cause I was targeting regional searches instead of brand names. It didn't seem like their suggestions were all too great, either, considering how they would say "20,000 competing" and really there were millions if you took off the quotes. Most people don't tend to search with quotes, so I don't see how it would help in reality (although I get the theory behind it). Has that tool really proved itself in your experience with it?

For the site map, should that contain links to every page on the site or all the major categories? (ie, the listings themselves, or just the different chevrolet and pontiac model pages)

To get the listings pages closer to the homepage, what would you recommend? Listing the 10 newest vehicles on the homepage? Linking to each of the Model pages from the homepage?

Anyway, thanks a bunch. You've been a huge help, and things are making sense, I'm just *not quite there*.

Rick

RISTMO Designs: Rockwall Web Design
Arab Church: Arabic Christian Resources
Genuine Autos: Kaufman Chevrolet & Pontiac Dealer
Rick Morgan's Official Website

 

[RISTMO]

And Chevrolet Equinox....to get a page 1 spot for that, is it just me, or isn't it going to be hard to outrank edmunds.com, automotive.com, and all those other well respected sites on there? If I were google and saw both a small site with little reputation and a big one with lots of reputation both trying to rank for the same thing, I'd choose the big one -- espeically since they're going to have so much better content.

Would you recommend writing new reviews for the cars, or how would I get on-topic content without copying? Or is copying "ok" in this situation? Is the idea that I have 35 pages about Chevrolet Equinox's that give me a branding for that phrase on the Chevrolet Equinox "homepage"?

Rick

RISTMO Designs: Rockwall Web Design
Arab Church: Arabic Christian Resources
Genuine Autos: Kaufman Chevrolet & Pontiac Dealer
Rick Morgan's Official Website

 

[ChrisHirst]

the free version of WT isn't that useful mainly because of the quotes, On the paid version there are more options and far more information to be collected and you can turn the quoted search off.

For the sitemap(s) the nearer you can get the individual listing to the home page the easier it will be to get deep crawled. Anything more than 3 clicks away and you need an exponential rise in external links to compensate. I'd look at having a page or 2 where every new model was listed in a similar fashion to the used auto pages. And have a link from every page to these pages.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.