I give up

[namealot]

Your meta tags are not 100 %, title is to long, description, content relevancy etc you would need to add others that your missing all together, In these sectors 1% is the difference between 1st and 20th page (all other things being equal), You really need some content to your home page, H1, alt tags, image naming (untitled.bmp not good practise..) etc all help …?

 

[doodlebug]

I've changed 2 of the title tags including the homepage, they were a bit long

Cheers, there's some stuff I don't have access to or I can't find it anyway, I use a site creator so it's not clear cut.

Thanks for the advice

 

[snooze]

I might be wrong but I think you tags should point to something: a product, an article. At the moment they are just words.

I have always point my tags to something.

 

[doodlebug]

TBH I'm not sure what you mean by pointing them at something ?

I'm a bit patchy on SEO :|

 

[retired_member25]

TBH I'm not sure what you mean by pointing them at something ?

I'm a bit patchy on SEO :|

Linking to something, as in an anchor text link. However I think it would be better to replace those words in the 'tag' container to further unique content, the current words won't do the pages any favours at all, especially as they're duplicated across the site. I assume when you're link building you're requesting '1 carat diamond ring' as your anchor text? If not, then i'd do this from now on.

Your meta description should be longer, around 160 characters, try and use the keyword and one or two variations of the keyword in the META, emphasise the main keyword you're targetting as the first piece of copy in the description - so something along the lines of -

1 carat diamond ring, Browse our fine collection of 1 carat diamond wedding rings, Designer & fashionable carat diamond rings online

Also have completely different META (including keywords) for each of your pages

I'd also capitalise each word in your titles - this looks better in the SERPS

 

[doodlebug]

Hi, James

My descriptions were longer, I got the impression form Namealot that they were to long

I do try to use different keywords for each page, as for capitalising the 1st word in my title, I didin't realise it wasn't, the only place I don't use capitals at all is in the actual meta keywords because most web users don't bother with capitals while searching.

Thanks for your post, I am reading about SEO everyday but going to have to buy SEO for dummies if it's not to outdated.

Thanks

 

[springer]

.

, I am reading about SEO everyday but going to have to buy SEO for dummies if it's not to outdated.

Thanks

There is enough information for free on the net. See:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

http://www.seofaststart.com/download (can download without registering)

 

[doodlebug]

Cheers Springer, I'm going to have a read, nice that its a PDF file

Just read a few pages and already going to make some changes

 

[retired_member25]

Hi, James

My descriptions were longer, I got the impression form Namealot that they were to long

I do try to use different keywords for each page, as for capitalising the 1st word in my title, I didin't realise it wasn't, the only place I don't use capitals at all is in the actual meta keywords because most web users don't bother with capitals while searching.

Thanks for your post, I am reading about SEO everyday but going to have to buy SEO for dummies if it's not to outdated.

Thanks

No problem

I'm not sure how long they were before but in my agency we advise around 160, altho nothing in seo is an exact science!

You're right, you don't need to use capitals in META keywords - I advised that you capitalise every word in your titles not just the beginning one, it just looks better in the SERPS, no seo benefit. Caps or no caps, makes no difference

 

[doodlebug]

James >

Ah I get you now, wouldn't be correct in terms of grammer but maybe you're right and I'm sure you have more experience than me

Thanks again

 

[namealot]

Sorry you may have confused my post I said “title is to long, description, content relevancy” to clarify....

Title is for the page should ideally be no more than 80 characters long including spaces (your original was longer)
e.g. 1 carat diamond rings the best place to buy 1 ct diamond rings wholesale prices. (80 characters)

Description was not matching the relevancy of the page.
Description tag says e.g. "a b c d diamond etc".

Then for description relevancy to be 100% all the words/characters/letters etc "a b c d diamond" should be on your page?

Description 160 characters (including spaces) and Title 80 characters (including spaces) or less
Description Character limits - currently Google displays up to 160 characters, Yahoo! up to 165 and MSN up to 200+ (they'll go to three vertical lines in some cases). Stick with the smallest - Google hope that makes it clearer ?

On say google results you would see....
(title)1 carat diamond rings the best place to buy 1 ct diamond rings wholesale prices.
(Then underneath description) a b c d diamond etc....

 

[doodlebug]

Namealot >

Thanks again for your advice, I'm learning now 160 for the description and 80 for the title.

I also read that Google might use part of the content on one of your pages instead of the description.

Improvments I have made include, for eg, on my page about the Crown jewels I had meta keywords such as diamond ring and diamonds for sale, they have now gone and I just have keywords such as crown jewels, stolen diamonds etc.

Thanks for all your help and Green rep added

 

[Edwin]

Here's a tool you can use to "practice" various title/description combinations until you get one that looks right. It simulates (as far as it can) how the actual listing would show up in the Google search results...
http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html

 

[doodlebug]

Thanks Edwin, I've bookmarked that site, will come in use

 

[namealot]

It can do but that’s normally due meta tagging, the relevancy of your description, word count and the algorithms, search syntax, query expansion etc, Google has added many other secret criteria for determining the ranking of pages on result lists, reported to be over 200 different indicators.

Once you've sussed them you get "I'm Feeling Lucky" button(which to be honest most people don’t know what it is…) When a user clicks it they will be taken directly to the first search result, bypassing the search engine results page the and reportedly cost google over 100 million in lost revenue….

 

[doodlebug]

I'm feeling lucky cost them 100M in lost revenue :shock:
Actually the I'm feeleing lucky button is counter productive for them because of Adwords (Numptys)

I never use I'm feeling lucky because I want a choice and not just 1 site.

Things are looking good regarding my SEO, it's improving everyday