Lost in the quagmire that is SEO

[Voids]

I've been running my site www.footy-tipster.co.uk for around 6 months now, regularly publishing content and trying to focus on hitting certain keywords to improve my ranking.

I've got the feeling that for all my effort I'm wandering down a blind path with little focus. I'm currently receiving between 1 and 25 hits a day, which is way below what I would like. Effort and commitment isn't the problem, I religiously follow a SEO plugin which helps to analyse the content of each post but it seems to be having little effect.

I'm now unsure which key words I should be targetting, how to find the amount of traffic per key word and I feel vastly lost at the moment.

Any help is appreciated .

Cheers guys

[thebookiesoffers]

first little tip I'll give you is all about your sig here, it is exactly like the spammy example Matt Cutts gave in a list of spam tachniques they frowned upon.

also a SEO plugin won't really help you rank higher, just makes the process of putting the titles in correctly etc

best advice I could give you is take a step back for a couple of days, read up on google guides, use the google keyword tool in exact mode to find the keyword traffic, then have a good read of some respected seo sites like seomoz and then reavaluate how you were doing and where you want to be going

[Voids]

Thanks for the reply

From what I'm reading the basic gist is just be more honest and stop trying to play the game, almost let your site do the talking?

However I can't see much difference between our signatures?

I've read articles that googles keyword tool throws up some dubious data and isn't worth trusting, I thought that one of my keywords which I now rank 4th on google for would increase traffic but it's not. Feels a lot like all that time trying to get to the front page was for nothing.

Maybe a few days off is a good idea, I'm determined to make this site work so more reading is required.

[thebookiesoffers]

Thanks for the reply

From what I'm reading the basic gist is just be more honest and stop trying to play the game, almost let your site do the talking?

However I can't see much difference between our signatures?

I've read articles that googles keyword tool throws up some dubious data and isn't worth trusting, I thought that one of my keywords which I now rank 4th on google for would increase traffic but it's not. Feels a lot like all that time trying to get to the front page was for nothing.

Maybe a few days off is a good idea, I'm determined to make this site work so more reading is required.

sig wise - 5 links just to 2 pages

the keyword tool is quite good when used correctly, i.e 'exact' search and not 'broad'

what is the keyword you refer to? and what country you targeting?

[Ord Allenbea]

I see you are using wordpress and a limited seo plugin. The thing about these seo plugins are that you are going by what the creator of that plugin deems as seo. A few tips to help you are below but this is by far a complete review of your site (I spent less than 30 sec on your site).

You have no meta keywords
You have no author on your post
You have no tags on your post

Your content must include semantically related words and be of high quality according to grade level. Again I looked at your site real quick and this is just some of the things I noticed so this is by far a complete review.

Participating in social media and sharing your post in the social networks also help.

Suggestion: Install All-In-One-SEO plugin it is far more useful. You may also want to install the Google XML Sitemap plugin.

[Sausages]

I looked around your cashforfree site. It is very important that you write content for your reader, not for Google. You also need to proof read what you have written. Aside from the many grammatical errors, you also have a lot of 'click here' and 'read more' links, without the link been added. This gives a poor impression to your reader i.e. potential customer.
What is uncategorized? If the target audience is British, then you need to use English spelling. But also that word does not make sense. Everything un-categorised has been placed in a category, therefore the term is meaningless.
Good, unique content may be hard work, but checking for basic errors is not. You need to sort that out.

And finally: You have a donate button!!!! Are you SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chris.ubinary]

Lost in the quagmire that is SEO
I've been running my site www.footy-tipster.co.uk for around 6 months now, regularly publishing content and trying to focus on hitting certain keywords to improve my ranking.

I've got the feeling that for all my effort I'm wandering down a blind path with little focus. I'm currently receiving between 1 and 25 hits a day, which is way below what I would like. Effort and commitment isn't the problem, I religiously follow a SEO plugin which helps to analyse the content of each post but it seems to be having little effect.

I'm now unsure which key words I should be targetting, how to find the amount of traffic per key word and I feel vastly lost at the moment.

Any help is appreciated .

Cheers guys

Hey Voids,
Just giving an AM's perspective which would hopefully help as well - I don't think it's just content that you'd need, you seem to have done the ground work on the site which is good and now it's time for you to take it to the next level

First, at some point when you do get some visitors, the question becomes what added value are you bringing to the player by having them sign up with you?

Second, making the site a bit more visually appealing - maybe start by focusing on one or two pages and expand but work on optimizing the pages that tend to get the most hits

Third - get some real player feedback on what they'd like to see on the site and based on the resources you have execute the elements that are possible

And apart from all that - plan ahead, set yourself some milestones and have goals in mind that you'd like to hit by March, July and end of the year and do the necessary research including what changes are expected

Hope that helps and also don't get discouraged - you will have roadblocks ahead, for sure just keep going

Good luck,

Chris

[Voids]

I looked around your cashforfree site. It is very important that you write content for your reader, not for Google. You also need to proof read what you have written. Aside from the many grammatical errors, you also have a lot of 'click here' and 'read more' links, without the link been added. This gives a poor impression to your reader i.e. potential customer.
What is uncategorized? If the target audience is British, then you need to use English spelling. But also that word does not make sense. Everything un-categorised has been placed in a category, therefore the term is meaningless.
Good, unique content may be hard work, but checking for basic errors is not. You need to sort that out.

And finally: You have a donate button!!!! Are you SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My cashforfree site was my original endeavor, it was a long hard struggle as the site mutated through my various different ideas. I decided that my blog would be focused football tips and that domain wasn't correct for my new blog. Cashforfree has been neglected somewhat in the past few months and I may need to address this to rectify some of my previous mistakes and rushed content as you have mentioned. The theme is American designed hence the US spelling and the uncategorized posts are posts I placed in a category that was previously deleted. I will put some work in to tidy up this site and making the user experience better overall. I would hasten to add that this is not were my focus is currently the site mentioned in the OP is. The donation button is a relic from the football tipping period the site took.

I have a decent presence and following on twitter, over 2000 followers and the donation button on footy-tipster.co.uk is their for that following.

Thanks for your comments.

[Voids]

Hey Voids,
Just giving an AM's perspective which would hopefully help as well - I don't think it's just content that you'd need, you seem to have done the ground work on the site which is good and now it's time for you to take it to the next level

First, at some point when you do get some visitors, the question becomes what added value are you bringing to the player by having them sign up with you?

Second, making the site a bit more visually appealing - maybe start by focusing on one or two pages and expand but work on optimizing the pages that tend to get the most hits

Third - get some real player feedback on what they'd like to see on the site and based on the resources you have execute the elements that are possible

And apart from all that - plan ahead, set yourself some milestones and have goals in mind that you'd like to hit by March, July and end of the year and do the necessary research including what changes are expected

Hope that helps and also don't get discouraged - you will have roadblocks ahead, for sure just keep going

Good luck,

Chris

In regards to the first point the majority of tips are available to the general public without any sign up required, we use the sign up function to give users access to a free e-mail which contains a summary of the weeks tips (including some advertising). That is the added value.

The site is based on a wordpress theme, it may well be too dull and need updating to a more appealing theme. The design basis was around getting the information across to the users easily and effectively without appearing too flash. It may be detracting from the site, rather than improving it.

I have a 12 month goal for before Christmas next year, so I will create some shorter goals, both financial and non-financial in the short term.

Thanks Chris

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Did someone say keywords? unless its automated through your plugin don't spend your time on keyword metas, or waste your time rather. After all these years its funny to see that though. They can't help with Google, Yahoo or Bing rankings but they can't hurt either.

If you are using plugins I assume you are using a Wordpress CMS, so the easy answer I think is that you use the many other plugins optimised for this and mash a few together.

Here are the main ones I use, as well as a paid plug-in that's worth the money if you do video optimisation;

Advanced YouTube Embed Plugin - Embed Plus
Facebook Button Plugin
Facebook Like Box
Google+ Author Plugin
Google Author Link
Google Plus Author Information in Search Result (GPAISR)
Like-Button-Plugin-For-Wordpress
WP OnlyWire Auto Poster
OnlyWire for WordPress [OFFICIAL]
Super RSS Reader
SEO Ultimate

PAID - http://yoast.com/wordpress/video-seo/

You'll need a G+ author account, and an Onlywire account which needs up to forty plus web 2.0 social media accounts that you will need to sign up for...and this is just the beginning.

I won't go into each and everyone. That's for you to do your homework like an SEO and learn what these things do. Most of what you need to understand why to mash them and how to use them will fall into place. If you have a question about one or more of them or if anyone else wants to know why and you have already researched what these plugins do just post the question.

Basically my short answer is, if you are doing what you say and adding new, unique and optimised content, you need to get that content out there to get linked to and for social media to get it kick-started.

hint; you can buy things like Pinterest links, Facebook Likes and Friends, Tweets to large networks and other types of social media injection for a job.

[thebookiesoffers]

Did someone say keywords?

yes, me and the OP mentioned keywords, not the keywords meta, well I haven't anyway. He needs to know what keywords to target and what traffic they'll generate

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Yea that makes sense. The first thing I do in any SEO situation is;

- ask the client for their keywords
- do kw research and pick the keyword/s we will actually target
- get them to sign off on them
- run a pre-seo report across all engines in their target market
- deliver this as a milestone document for future comparisons, especially when the contract comes back in to the picture)

I structure keywords this way;
- One or Two "Hollywood" terms
- Five primary terms
- Ten secondary terms
- Fifty long-tail terms

Then I build a hierarchy tree or in the case of an existing site on a CMS I rebuild the silos, use existing ranked and linked pages worth keeping within these silos, and add the rest in their appropriate silos. Then usually the first thing I do on a CMS/ style site is to set-up my Permalinks and Juggernauts so I don't cross-link pages and confuse the bots.

On a side not I target the long-tail terms first because they give you something to show a client and they create traffic. Usually well converting traffic.

Google said seventy five percent of all searches done every day are "first-time" queries. These queries resulted in eighty percent of all conversions.

So go after the low-hanging fruit. Especially if you are expecting ROI in the gaming industry.

GaryTheScubaGuy

[xecutable]

I missed your im last night Voids. Hit me up when you are online. I will give you a few things, cause I have been where you are before.

[Voids]

Did someone say keywords? unless its automated through your plugin don't spend your time on keyword metas, or waste your time rather. After all these years its funny to see that though. They can't help with Google, Yahoo or Bing rankings but they can't hurt either.

If you are using plugins I assume you are using a Wordpress CMS, so the easy answer I think is that you use the many other plugins optimised for this and mash a few together.

Here are the main ones I use, as well as a paid plug-in that's worth the money if you do video optimisation;

Advanced YouTube Embed Plugin - Embed Plus
Facebook Button Plugin
Facebook Like Box
Google+ Author Plugin
Google Author Link
Google Plus Author Information in Search Result (GPAISR)
Like-Button-Plugin-For-Wordpress
WP OnlyWire Auto Poster
OnlyWire for WordPress [OFFICIAL]
Super RSS Reader
SEO Ultimate

PAID - http://yoast.com/wordpress/video-seo/

You'll need a G+ author account, and an Onlywire account which needs up to forty plus web 2.0 social media accounts that you will need to sign up for...and this is just the beginning.

I won't go into each and everyone. That's for you to do your homework like an SEO and learn what these things do. Most of what you need to understand why to mash them and how to use them will fall into place. If you have a question about one or more of them or if anyone else wants to know why and you have already researched what these plugins do just post the question.

Basically my short answer is, if you are doing what you say and adding new, unique and optimised content, you need to get that content out there to get linked to and for social media to get it kick-started.

hint; you can buy things like Pinterest links, Facebook Likes and Friends, Tweets to large networks and other types of social media injection for a job.

Thanks for the reply.

The plugins I'm currently using are

WordPress SEO by Yoast.com
Google Author Link - Recently configured

In regards to SEO , so I will look at your other plugins and see what benefit they add. I have around 2300 twitter followers and 150 facebook likes at the moment and I'm trying to build these audiences. I will look at how to get the content out there so thanks.

In regards to keywords it's the SERPS terms I'm looking to target that I was getting lost with, I don't bother with the tag clouds on each post because they add little benefit from what I've read.

I appreciate your help, especially from an expert, so thanks.

[Voids]

Yea that makes sense. The first thing I do in any SEO situation is;

- ask the client for their keywords
- do kw research and pick the keyword/s we will actually target
- get them to sign off on them
- run a pre-seo report across all engines in their target market
- deliver this as a milestone document for future comparisons, especially when the contract comes back in to the picture)

I structure keywords this way;
- One or Two "Hollywood" terms
- Five primary terms
- Ten secondary terms
- Fifty long-tail terms

Then I build a hierarchy tree or in the case of an existing site on a CMS I rebuild the silos, use existing ranked and linked pages worth keeping within these silos, and add the rest in their appropriate silos. Then usually the first thing I do on a CMS/ style site is to set-up my Permalinks and Juggernauts so I don't cross-link pages and confuse the bots.

On a side not I target the long-tail terms first because they give you something to show a client and they create traffic. Usually well converting traffic.

Google said seventy five percent of all searches done every day are "first-time" queries. These queries resulted in eighty percent of all conversions.

So go after the low-hanging fruit. Especially if you are expecting ROI in the gaming industry.

GaryTheScubaGuy

I'll have to spend some time reading and interpreting your meaning in regards to this post, there's a lot of strategy relating to keywords that I will need to understand fully before charging ahead.

Thanks for giving me some structure to work around.

I missed your im last night Voids. Hit me up when you are online. I will give you a few things, cause I have been where you are before.

Thanks xecutable, I'll try get in touch today or tomorrow

[Sausages]

Hey Voids, sorry for been a little harsh in my last post. Your site has potential, because you have the content and the web presence. It just needs a tidy.
I had a look at your Twitter, and you are popular. 2100 followers is very good, and if they are all active, you could target them with affiliation offers as well as links to both of your sites, but don't spam them.
If you use a domain shortener such as goo.gl, you can post offers to your followers as well as track how many people have clicked the shortened link. This may work better than your web site in the short term, just be careful not to spam them because you don't want un-follows.

[Voids]

Hey Voids, sorry for been a little harsh in my last post. Your site has potential, because you have the content and the web presence. It just needs a tidy.
I had a look at your Twitter, and you are popular. 2100 followers is very good, and if they are all active, you could target them with affiliation offers as well as links to both of your sites, but don't spam them.
If you use a domain shortener such as goo.gl, you can post offers to your followers as well as track how many people have clicked the shortened link. This may work better than your web site in the short term, just be careful not to spam them because you don't want un-follows.

No worries! A little internet beating isn't going to put me off! ha!

As I'm still new to the game, I'm still learning what content does what, and I spend a lot of time reading and trying to learn, whilst working on the new site, doing my ACA exams and actually working in practice so sometimes you need someone to point out the obvious in order to recognise it! So thanks!

I will try more link tracking to gain a better view on what links generate clicks and conversions.

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

WordPress SEO by Yoast.com

Joost's plugin is great. I've spoken with him on many occassions at conferences. Brilliant guy.

I don't use his plugins on all my sites but a majority. I like SEO Ultimate because of the juggernauts and social media integration among other features that Yoast doesn't have.

Both are great though and I couldn't tell you at this point which is better. I do actually have a test going on with it though because the two plugins do not work well together.

[Voids]

Joost's plugin is great. I've spoken with him on many occassions at conferences. Brilliant guy.

I don't use his plugins on all my sites but a majority. I like SEO Ultimate because of the juggernauts and social media integration among other features that Yoast doesn't have.

Both are great though and I couldn't tell you at this point which is better. I do actually have a test going on with it though because the two plugins do not work well together.

Yeah I've emailed him and read some of his articles which has help me get one of my serps to page 1 rank 4 (rank 3 as of today) .

[Voids]

Just wanted to post a quick update, I'm climbing the search rankings on a few key terms and although traffic is still the same I suppose their is hope. I'm in the processes of re-writing and designing my cashforfree website with some of the tips and comments from this thread.

Thanks guys.