Need a proven SEO expert

[RichardF]

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I have a website (http://www.fitness-shop.com.au) an am now at the stage where i am considering using an SEO expert. i want my site listed on first page Google search for several key words.
All sounds really simple, doesn’t it?? not for me. i have found heaps of these ‘experts’ on the net. I am aware that good SEO takes months, and a bit of money (maybe not $6000+ for 12 months!).
I want to know if anyone has used an SEO expert for their website, and had the desired results – ie: improved Google listings.
Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Richard
http://www.fitness-shop.com.au

[Anonymous]

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RichardF, post: 37670 wrote:

I have a website (http://www.fitness-shop.com.au) an am now at the stage where i am considering using an SEO expert. i want my site listed on first page Google search for several key words.
All sounds really simple, doesn’t it?? not for me. i have found heaps of these ‘experts’ on the net. I am aware that good SEO takes months, and a bit of money (maybe not $6000+ for 12 months!).
I want to know if anyone has used an SEO expert for their website, and had the desired results – ie: improved Google listings.
Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Richard
http://www.fitness-shop.com.au

Are you looking for front page listings on terms such as gym equipment, fitness equipment, home gym, etc? If so these are relatively competitive keyword terms and if you’ve been quoted $6K for results in up to 12 months time I don’t think that would be too unreasonable, I always quote on a time taken basis and my rates are pretty reasonable and it is likely this is too.

It would be a comprehensive link building strategy that makes all the difference to the success of your website and it can be VERY time intensive to find good quality links which make all the difference to the success of your SEO campaign. I know when I do link building for clients I sometimes feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall, I might spend a day requesting 20-30 links and maybe get 1 or 2!

Good luck with finding someone!

Karen

[RichardF]

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thanks for the reply.

[JohnW]

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Hi Richard,

Whoa up. It looks to me like you have problems with attracting relevant site visitors AND converting them into paying customers. What do your traffic and sales reports tell you about conversion?

Please do not fall into the trap of setting an objective to rank top of a small group of keywords. The important objective is to increase RELEVANT referrals from the search engines for the least cost. I could show you sites whose relevant referrals are 1,000% higher than could be achieved by targeting a few frequently used keywords.

I’m guessing that you and/or an adviser have been trying to implement SEO. It looks like there is a lot of “shot gun” targeting of search words being attempted. It also looks like someone has been trying to build lots of external links.

Your site is suffering from the problems that ail so many shopping carts.

In a nutshell, it is not constructed, designed nor written to help the search engines evaluate what each of its pages are about. A big clue to this is that Google has indexed 1,040 of your pages but decided that 73% have so little importance that it has relegated them to its supplementary index.

Shopping carts that contain lots of products very often send conflicting messages to the search engines like this.

Product Example: Flat Adjustable Bench
http://www.fitness-shop.com.au/flat-adjustable-bench-p-332.html

There are 22 words of product specific information on this page. They are:

“Flat Adjustable Bench

Increase strength, flexibility and range of motion on this rock tough workout bench.
Great for Dumbell Bench Rows
Adjustable Height
Home Use”

A search engine can read around 350 words on this page. It is more likely to think this page is about balls, bells, bags, boxing or bikes than benches. Compare the usage of each word on the page.

The problem is even more evident on your Home page…

Your Home page is your most important real estate to the search engines. What are you telling them are the important words?

Your Domain Name: “fitness” and “shop”
Your External Links: “fitness” and “shop” – I’m guessing that most links use your business/domain name.
Your Home Title: “Gym”, “Equipment”, “Fitness”, “Weights”, “Bench”, “Home”, “Multi”, “Power” and “Rack”

Your Page Text: 837 words

Use of targeted words in visible text:
gym = 15
equipment = 15
home = 11
weights = 11
fitness = 9
bench = 8
multi = 6
multi = 6
power = 2
rack = 1
shop = 0

Your page is delivering confusing messages to the SEs. Two of your most important ranking parameters are telling them that your page is about “fitness” and “shop” but your visible page content contradicts this. The word “shop” is not used in the text at all.

There are 135,000 pages in Australia that contain the words “power” and “rack”. You can’t expect to rank well with a Home page that uses them so infrequently.

There is no single solution to improving search engine referrals. Each solution must be tailored to each client’s requirements.

Regs,

John W

[seocourse]

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BlueCherry, post: 37697 wrote:

It would be a comprehensive link building strategy that makes all the difference to the success of your website and it can be VERY time intensive to find good quality links which make all the difference to the success of your SEO campaign. I know when I do link building for clients I sometimes feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall, I might spend a day requesting 20-30 links and maybe get 1 or 2!

Good luck with finding someone!

Karen

Mmm you REQUEST links for your customes? OMG… don’t tell me you are still working on the “exchange links” idea?

Like… “dear Webmaster… I though you could be interested in exchanging links? ” —> is this what you mean by requesting links?

An SEO strategy has nothing to do with requesting links… but instead on creating your own links.

[RichardF]

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wow!! that was a very good reply, thanks. although, i suppose not many of us like that sort of criticism – but i am man enough to understand it and value it.
you obviously know your stuff. any change you could send me a message with your suggestions – even a business proposal?

Richard

[seocourse]

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RichardF, post: 37747 wrote:

wow!! that was a very good reply, thanks. although, i suppose not many of us like that sort of criticism – but i am man enough to understand it and value it.
you obviously know your stuff. any change you could send me a message with your suggestions – even a business proposal?

Richard

Hi Richard: PM Sent

Sorry for being critic… but the fact is that having a site ranked by trying to get links via “link exchange” well…. good luck.

I’m usually not very “diplomatic” sometimes – apologies.

this is the deal.

SEO is one thing – 90% link building. That’s it.

The better the links the more Google Juice the more ranking.

You will find a lot of people telling you: the importance is the quality, the content, the “customer experience” . that is all nice… but has nothing to do with ranking.

Ranking is about links , links and more links…

If I can build more links that you , and the links have more authority than yours… I win.

Nice? Idealistic? Romantic? No.

I wish it was different, I wish that Google will detect always the best quality, the best grammar and the best “valuable” information…

So at the end of the day, you, me and anyone that wants to be first… you need to play the game, and go out there and get links.

You will find many people that say “Hey I’m first for: Cheap Blue Shoes in Perth” … well good for them. But the reality is that ranking for that type of keywords can achieved with just 1 inbound link with enough google juice.
Yep: Just 1 link can do the job.

So regardless the quote you get from any SEO expert ask them this questions

1) Where are my links coming from? What type of link strategy do you have in place? Do they outsource their link building ?

2) are the links “permanent” after I stop paying you? (many SEO companies use their own link farm

3) Why 12 months and not 6 months? (Your website is page rank 3 and registered in 2006… so there is no fear of sandbox)

4) Do they offer money back guarantee?

5) If they are an SEO firm.. ask them what keyword do they rank for? (I mean their own site…. must rank for something … I mean if they are SEO experts)

Take care and Good luck with the fitness site

* I used to have a lovely treadmill website ranked 1st in Google… I exchanged for a lovely Real treadmill that now lies bored in my Garage

Cheers

Gab

[TheWebExpert]

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Hi,

You have quite a bit of work to do.

I tend to agree with JohnW though.

I would also look at a whole lot of things – as in essence you are selling online.
Do you have the traffic coming to your site??
If there is traffic – how many are actually buying??
I would be looking at removing the oscID= from all the URL’s.

It may be a hard job – but I would also be putting a lot more in the descriptions of the item pages.

Sure site links are important, but I am sure everyone on here has seen sites rank better with less links than the next site – so important yes – but the most crucial factor – no.

V

[seocourse]

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TheWebExpert, post: 37757 wrote:

Hi,

I am sure everyone on here has seen sites rank better with less links than the next site – so important yes – but the most crucial factor – no.

V

Well, I’m sorry to say this but : you are wrong.

Is not in the amount of links… it is in the value and quality of the links

But don’t take my word:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Look at the numbers

24% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain –> how you achieve this?
With Quality Links.

22% Link Popularity of the Specific Page —> mmm links again

20% Anchor Text of External Links

and at the end….

15% On-Page Keyword Usage

So if you don’t think links is what put you up in the search engines… do this experiment

Optimize your site and make it SEO lovely and friendly

Then get a plan lame HTML site with poor SEO structure and build 300 quality links sending google juice… and google love.. and authority…

Who will rank first? Who will rank higher?

Simple: the one with more links… the one with better links… wins.

* time to put the kids to bed. good luck!

[Anonymous]

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seocourse, post: 37746 wrote:

Mmm you REQUEST links for your customes? OMG… don’t tell me you are still working on the “exchange links” idea?

Like… “dear Webmaster… I though you could be interested in exchanging links? ” —> is this what you mean by requesting links?

An SEO strategy has nothing to do with requesting links… but instead on creating your own links.

Hi Gab

One aspect of a link strategy I work on for clients does involve requesting links but no, I don’t exchange links and it’s only part of the overall strategy! That example was from a recent project where there were a number of relevant industry associations that I had targeted for the client.

I 100% agree with you, links, links and more links is the way forward! Good quality relevant links of course!

Karen

[JohnW]

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seocourse, post: 37767 wrote:

But don’t take my word:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Look at the numbers
Hi Gabriel,
Excellent advice to “look at the numbers”…

I did, last August when the survey was published. Here are the numbers that I discovered…

The survey was based on 72 people’s opinions of over 100 questions. Some questions appear to have been included because they were topical at the time. There are many SEO issues I would regard as important that were not included.

The participants could only reach a strong consensus of agreement on 1 question (0.6% of questions). And that was a question that they agreed was an unimportant topic.

They could only come up with a moderate level of agreement or better on a third of the questions.

You want to quote this opinion poll as some sort of SEO authority?

If I was into selling sponsored links I would be quoting this article to prove there were a bunch of incompetents in the SEO industry.

Regs,

John W

[IgniteDM]

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seocourse, post: 37767 wrote:

Well, I’m sorry to say this but : you are wrong.

Is not in the amount of links… it is in the value and quality of the links
!

Ive seen it a number of times, sites with stuff all links, and the links it had were very spammy looking.. out ranking quality sites with quality links.

The theory from a previous employer of mine was that Google is not ALWAYS going to go by its own “rules” – if the recipe was that simple.. then why would people need to use Adwords as well ? Its all a big conspiracy!
**********

Richard – I know you didn’t ask for feedback on your site.. but my instant impression was that the combination of the background and the content hurt my eyes !

You may also like to consider the trust aspect from the user. I know this does not affect rankings,.. but you are currently lacking the user trust icons such as Verisign Secured.. or whatever relevant one you are using. Id also recommend incorporating the logos for your payment options: Paypal, Mastercard etc etc When Im shopping online and I reach a website.. its one of the first things Im looking for.. if I cant find the Paypal logo.. I move on to another option.

Good Luck !

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