Im looking to learn a bit more than my very basic knowledge of SEO for my wifes website.. anyone point me in a good direction please..

Can’t help with the SEO, but I don’t suppose the website is C9V is it ?

No (would make sense tho)… shamless plug ..

http://www.ditsydodo.co.uk

*..

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Given how rapidly there are changes going on in the whole SEO area I’d be wary of buying books – they’re likely to be out of date quite quickly.

Google is getting much better at spotting those that manipulate their pages for ranking and penalising them.

As always the best SEO is content that gets viewed and linked to.

I do this sort of thing for a living. Best place to start is Moz’s beginners guide to SEO

(or here’s a link to the PDF)

Also, their series of Whiteboard Friday videos are an excellent resource too – well worth 10 minutes of a Friday morning (as well as spending a few hours going back through the archives).

Noble Samurai also have some good tutorial videos in their Dojo section. Mostly based around their product(s), but educational nonetheless and worth a watch.

http://www.noblesamurai.com/dojo/

Good luck!

Don’t bother with SEO voodoo.

You need a well-built, accessible page with regularly updated, relevant content to which people will link.

Don’t bother with SEO voodoo.

You need a well-built, accessible page with regularly updated, relevant content to which people will link

Not wishing to be rude or owt, but what do you think optimising a website is, if not ensuring it’s well built, accessible, regularly updated, relevant and well-linked too…?

🙂

The days of shady, black-hat stuff are (thankfully) dying out fast. There’s no voodoo to it anymore, but what you’ve described above (which is good advice I’ll add), pretty much IS what SEO is all about these days.

You need a well-built, accessible page with regularly updated, relevant content to which people will link

pretty much IS what SEO is all about these days.

They should start calling it ‘People Optimization’ then 🙂

They should start calling it ‘People Optimization’ then

Or just web design?

What miketually says^.

Also worth noting that most search engines are basically “blind” in that they read the content just like a blind person would use a screen reader. Really interesting to download something like ChromeVox (free) and see how accessible your website really is…

Rachel

Or just web design?

I do think the ongoing commitment continue to add content and keep a site fresh isn’t just a reflection of design, though?

The whole ‘search engine’ thing is increasingly irrelevant now though as they move more to looking at pages in the same way that people do.

The whole ‘search engine’ thing is increasingly irrelevant now though as they move more to looking at pages in the same way that people do.

Care to expand on that? 🙂

Listen to what jamesmio says.

Yep +1 for jamesmio

Thanks for the comments so far.. we do rank pretty well for organic searches and quite often come up on the first or second pages if you search for a particular brand.

Thanks for the comments so far.. we do rank pretty well for organic searches and quite often come up on the first or second pages if you search for a particular brand.

Cool, that’s a good start then! :). Remember though that nearly everybody gets a different set of search results nowadays, depending on loads of factors (their location, previous search history etc), so where you think you’re ranking may well not be a true reflection for everyone.

A few things to maybe think about then:

1) What sort of traffic are you getting for people searching for the brand names/products you’re selling. Is this anything close to what you could be getting if you ranked higher for it? (Your keyword research will give you an idea of a rough idea of potential search traffic for any given search term).

2) What sort of conversion rate are you getting from this – i.e. if 100 people see your product page(s), how many of them go through the checkout and buy?

With almost every site I’ve worked on, concentrating on sorting out the checkout process (i.e. removing anything that REALLY doesn’t need to be there, making sure the ‘BUY NOW’ / ‘CHECKOUT’ buttons etc are nice and clear etc) makes a far greater difference to actual sales than just trying to increase traffic.

Depending on what you’re selling, it might be worth looking at things like Pinterest/Etsy (esp. if it’s aimed at women).

Again – good luck!

Thanks jmio.. Selling mainly gisela graham Christmas decorations so we are in our busiest period at the minute. We sell on eBay and amazon too but we are trying to deflect more business to the website.

No worries, you’re very welcome!

Just by way of example, for “gisela graham Christmas decorations” your site comes up in 12’th (page 2) on Google for me when I search…

Oh – this just dropped into my inbox – nicely timed!

Last year’s was excellent for packing in loads of good info and tips – fill yer boots tomorrow if you can!

Remember our last DistilledU open day? It’s almost that time again.
For tomorrow only we’re giving you access to our full range of training guides, including advanced modules and video content. Topics include expert outreach, international SEO and how to build a mobile-friendly website.

Just hop onto distilled.net/u/ tomorrow morning. And don’t forget our discussion panel on Analytics and Measurement with myself, Dr Pete and Annie Cushing. You can join in and add the event to your calendars over here.

Enjoy the learning!
Will

Bear in mind as well,

It’s perhaps naive to think “I sell widgets, so I want to be at the top of search results when people go looking for widgets” because, well, so does every other widget salesman. Whether there’s five companies selling widgets or five thousand, there’s only one top spot, only one first page. Not that I’m saying you are thinking that, but your expectations should be realistic.

The truth of the matter is, nothing draws crowds like crowds. If your site is being used and getting traffic, if all the links work, if other sites are linking to it, it’ll get bumped up the ranks. Amazon aren’t the number one hit when you search for widgets because they’ve invisibly written “widget” 200 times at the bottom of every page, they’re #1 because they’ve spent the GDP of a small country on advertising.