Ranking Advice Requested

[Hagens]

Hey guys/gals.

I've just started working for a company a few weeks ago, on the premise that i could get much better placement for their website.

I know how to code in the old style text style, and thats about it.

I took a look at the website, and i made a TON of changing, fixing, and tweaking. But I feel there's probably a lot more I could do.... you know, since i'm pretty much a self taught newbie an' all.

If you have time, could you look at the site code, and pass me some tips?
Keep in mind tho... someone made this website before i got to it, so there's some stuff in the meta area thats kinda funny, and not to mention it was done with a program instead of good 'ol fashion notepad.
Thanks in advance.... www.hagensfish.com

[coop99]

Build back links, build back links and then try to acquire more back links!

Here is where you are now: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search

Here is where you want to be: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... google.com

Also, social bookmarking is quickly becoming popular with the birth of Bookmark sites like del.icio.us and flickr. The more bookmarks your site receives, the more popular it will appear to search engines, and they will reward you with higher rankings.

The on-page factors are just a basic start to the SEO process, and can be followed-up with many other off-page strategies, techniques, and procedures that will assist your on-page efforts in the search engines.

Try to research SEO more, and keep up-to-date on the new strategies and techniques by visiting forums and blogs that have members you can relate to and like getting advice and feedback from, like here!

Once you gather more knowledge, ask questions relating to what you want to learn more about, and then give it a try for yourself (it's a good idea NOT to try new SEO strategies you have not researched or performed on client sites, instead try them on test sites so you can judge the results and potential problems if any).

[Hagens]

Thanks guy. I took a look at those links, and I know I have a slew more out there than that. What happened to those? Do i have to wait for google to re-index THOSE sites before it helps me?

[coop99]

You probably do have more links in total than Google is showing...

Use this tool to see links displayed on several search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google. http://www.submitexpress.com/linkpop/

Or you can use this tool which essentially does the same thing. http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/

Google does not show all links using the 'link:' command they only release a few at each back link (BL) export and update.

It may raise to 20 or 30 next time, even though the links it updates are usually already there for awhile before the BL update.

You can also find sites that link to yours by typing in your url all-one-word without '.com' or 'www.'

Build links, track links, get rewarded in SE's!

[bigmallrat]

Hey Hagens,
Your website is pretty good. Fantastic if you consider it was done in Notepad!
Shopping website are extemely competitive and its difficult to get top rankings soon.
Getting quality backlinks is key, but not so easy. You have to get creative. I wish I had some advice but I've failed miserable in that department. Nonetheless, my pages have top rankings on MSN and Yahoo. I think the Google aging delay is holding me back there.
One thing to consider: your keywords shouldn't exceed 3-5% of the total words on each page. I'm not sure if what I found is the correct keywords in your page: "High-quality fishing tackle" or "fishing tackle"? Might add that one or two more times on the main page.
One thing you could really benefit from is some marketing writing. Increased Web sales should be your goal, not just getting more hits. The first paragraph should describe the site (and often the first 60 or so words is the most important to obtain better rankings). You have to be brief and to the point to turn web surfers into buyers. That is, you need to earn a reputation and the visits you receive may be more fruitful. They say 5 visitors who all are turned into buyers is better than 100 visitors that don't buy a thing.

I went ahead and took the text from your site and moved some paragraphs around as well as made it leaner. You can take it or leave it, but it's just a suggestion. And hey, it would have cost you $100 to have this done. Finally, so you know, I'm a technical writer by trade. 7 years experience. Often I'm asked to write marketing literature, too, but I like the technical stuff better

For example:

"Welcome to Hagen's, your reliable fishing component and rod source. We specialize in high-quality fishing tackle components, fishing rods, and custom orders. Everything is made at our facility to ensure top-quality products at prices you can afford.

Request one of our catalogs for the latest pricing and selection.

Our Marine catalog is full of high quality marine products, such as <provide some examples here>

Our Fishing Rods catalog features our handcrafted Hagen's rods, built using only the finest quality components.

Our Fishing Tackle Components catalog features the widest selection available. It is filled with quality fishing lures, casting spoons, hooks, jigs, floats, spinner blades, buzz blades, and much more!

Stop by often and check out our 'Whats New' page to see how we expand our fishing tackle product line every day.

Hagen's guarantees 100% customer satisfaction. If you have any questions, comments, or don't see what you're looking for in our catalogs, then call or e-mail us! We might be able to come up with a better solution for you!

THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING HAGEN'S"

Well, there has been plenty of other excellent advice, so I'll leave it with that.
Scott
http://www.bigmallrat.com

[coop99]

Nice use of wording Scott!

Your right about site owners writing their text for users AND search engines NOT one or the other. Your copy does a pretty good job of feeding both what they look for and want to see.

Try adding in a Main Heading <h1> using the keywords too!

[coop99]

Great advice thomas, I was trying to get at the same thing by letting him know the JS navigation, and not having keywords in the link text would be a negative approach if rankings are the goal.

You did an excellent job of elaborating on exactly what needs to be done with the nav and keyword anchor text.

I liked your wording when you said:

Using targeted keywords in your navigation bar (featured on every page), you can really improve your ratings for those keywords. Even though these links are on your site, they are efffectively backlinks -and- you control them!

Thanks for taking the time to post your advice for the rest of the members.

[Hagens]

Wow... Thanks a lot guys. I really appreciate all this feedback!

I would like to clear up one thing tho... I didn't make the site with notepad. Someone ELSE did it with Dreamweaver. Altho, I could still do that in notepad fairly easy..... it's nothing more than a couple of tables. However, what I DID do was fix all the broken things left behind by someone that doesn't know how to make a web page, with notepad.

They moved the site to a different hosting service, and a chunk was screwed up. Thus, I fixed all the broken links, re-arranged the pages, and added more content.... yeah, You should've seen it BEFORE I got my hands on it.

Anyways, What i've done just recently, (please hit 'refresh' on your browser to get the most recent changes.) and I don't think any search engine has indexed this yet.... I've added 'alt' tags to all of the images, on every page, using more detailed keywords. Will this be a suitable replacement for basic text links... or will the search engines ignore the tags?

Also, if I understand this right... I've heard that page ranking can be affected by how far down the page my keywords end up being. Things that affect that would be tables.

Looking at the script for the index page, you can see someone put all that "DC blah blah" up in the header. Does any search engine use those tags? Should I just delete them to get my keywords closer to the top?

Thanks for all the input guys.. I really think this Hagen's page would be a real good example for what people are trying to accomplish here... being pretty straight forward, and simple to understand.