Using this service

[Gardengirl]

Hello,

I have had this service for my  free month. I had over 150 errors on my website which I fixed.  My problem is that  in doing this my traffic is actually worse and I have now fallen completely off google.

From the start of my website I would slowly creep to within t he top 3 pages of google for the search term apron and aprons, then suddenly I fall to somewhere around page 20. No one, even people I hired has been able to explain this. I hear google changes, it takes time, etc, etc... Its been 5 years and other newer companies are on the  top page right in their first year..

After working with this site for a month, I have looked  to page 65 for apron and aprons and still cant find me. And I know some people say Alexa is a gimmick, but now instead of rising to 10 million and falling back down to 23 million, Alexa says there is no info regarding my  website whatsoever.

Any advice? I was excited to have this service but I cant get my partner to agree to keep it if  my month long result is worse then I ever was before. And please dont say it takes time , 5 years is more than enough.

Thank you in advance!

[RyanKent]

The Call To Action does not come from the site software but rather from you or the developer. There are good WordPress sites and bad ones. Some people try to do it themselves, and others spend tens of thousands of their WP sites, and everywhere in between. You should be able to get a very solid WP e-commerce site for under $4k in my experience. Prices vary a lot but if the site was less I would question the quality and if it was more I would question the cost. That is my experience and others will likely share varying opinions.

My preference would be WP + eCommerce with Yoast SEO. Many prefer All in One SEO but most of the SEO community seems to prefer Yoast, as do I.

To answer your specific questions:

• the method of adding an ALT tag to your images vary based on your site software. I see you use Weebly. I generally do not work with any type of hosted solution such as Weebly. The positives are they allow anyone with limited programming knowledge to create a site, it is well hosted and low cost. The bad is I am not aware of any hosted solution which is truly SEO friendly. For example, you often cannot change ALT tags. You can ask Weebly support if there is a way to make this change.

• I am guessing the SEO shared the first sentence under the banner generally should be your H1 tag. I would recommend looking to Wikipedia as an excellent example of the proper use of H1 tags: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apron

On the Bib page (http://www.vermontapron.com/bib-aprons.html) as an example, the title "Bib Aprons" is fine but for ideal semantic mark up, it should be an H1 tag. Then "Blue Bird Bib Apron" and "Lavender Floral Bib Apron" should be H2 tags.

• Regarding keyword usage, yes that could have caused the drop in rankings. Your title is not idea, you lack an H1 tag, you content is very minimal, your images do not have helpful names nor H1 tags. With all the above pulling the little content which supported your keyword could be the issue. Generally speaking, use whatever you feel works best for your users. Speak to them naturally. Do not stuff extra keywords in an effort to rank better. Generally using the keyword 2 - 3 times on a page is a very solid approach. You can use it more IF it seems completely natural to do such, but don't expect to rank any higher because of it.

• When you use the term "Bib Aprons" on he /bib-aprons.html page, you are using the term but not in content. Again, refer back to Wikipedia. Every time they talk about a different sub-category they offer a header and then begin the content with the keyword focus. For example, on the Wikipedia Apron page look at the Cobler Apron or Bungalow Apron section.

[Gardengirl]

Thank you for a great response!  Would love to hire out but I cannot hire anyone as I have done that in the past and got nothing. I have friends who have spent thousands and got no improvement as well. This seomoz site was my hope of learning more on my own. You sound like its possible which is a good thing. I am also looking at a Wordpress ecommerce site that has a great call to action, and prodcut focus, hopefully I can move to that without looking cold and unfriendly. I need a blance of charm.

I have taken your advice and can make changes on most things on my own but I have a couple questions if I may ask.

Alt tags- I can do it on photos but in my commerce cart, there is no method I see for adding alt tags to the pictures.

H1- An SEO person told me that the first sentence under the banner is my H1 tag,  is that not true? If not, how and where do I add one?

KeyWord Usage- On my crawl report it said I had too many keywords on my front page so I removed them. Now being thrown off google, could that be the reason? should I add them back?

Drop down menu- When I use the word "Apron" in page titles on the drop down menu, does that count as keyword usage?

Thank you vey much for your help.

[RyanKent]

The first thing I noticed upon loading the site is it's very "busy". The background pulls my attention to it. There is not a clear "Call To Action" indicating what visitors should do. With that said, those items pertain more to conversion optimization. I will focus on the items which can impact your ranking.

• you have a lot of external links, 32 at the moment. 1/3 of your links are external. I would suggest reducing that number. By linking to so many external sites from your home page you are taking away from opportunities to build your own site ranking.

• the meta keywords is not used to help rankings. Remove the tag.

• your home page and other pages I checked lack a H1 tag. The H1 tag indicates the main focus of your page. It is part of semantic markup. I recommend using it.

• your home page title is "The Vermont Apron Company - Aprons by The Vermont Apron Company". You have to ask yourself what is the main focus of your home page? If you wish to establish your brand I would suggest using "The Vermont Apron Company" as your title. If you want to rank for aprons and establish your brand, I would suggest either "Aprons | Vermont Apron Company" or "Aprons by Vermont Apron Company"

• your home page has 38 coding errors on it. Google is good at working through errors, but they can impact how search engines crawl and view your site. These errors should be addressed: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vermontapron.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

• your entire header is an image: http://www.vermontapron.com/uploads/4/4/1/5/4415628/header_images/1323549402.jpg

All the text in the image should be taken out of the image and presented as html text so search engines can read it. Presently Google cannot "see" the image and does not offer you credit for the text.

• overall the image names and ALT tags on the site are awful. http://www.vermontapron.com/uploads/4/4/1/5/4415628/9632183.jpg?215 and the ALT = "Picture". Google cannot "see" your image so they use the image name and alt tag to gain an idea of what the image contains. For an image name I would suggest something like /images/goth-apron and the ALT tag could be "Goth apron on girl"

Some other items I noticed:

• you are not using a favicon. Your blue flower in your logo would work well for a favicon.

• if you are in business for the long term and intend to keep the brand name, you may wish to purchase a few other domain names. vermontapron.co is available and since you show "The Vermont Apron Co" in your header you may wish to acquire that domain along with some others including "the" in it. If you do purchase other domains then 301 redirect them to your main site.

• your page speed / hosting is excellent

• your page lacks a friendly 404 page. Ideally a 404 page should contain your site's normal navigation and footer along with a search box: http://www.vermontapron.com/robots

• your navigation needs attention. I am using Google Chrome browser on a large monitor and the term "Housewares" appears wrapped around on top of the upper left image. It is difficult to see in that location.

• have you heard of Pinterest? If not, look it up and register. Your site is perfect for promotion on Pinterest.

Summary

Your site can definitely benefit from SEO. On the one hand, you have many of the challenging aspects of promoting a web business down. You offer unique, handcrafted products. Your products are the type of items people, especially women, love to talk about. When I walk through a call center and pass all the cubicles there are often many workers browsing sites such as yours and talking about it with all their friends. You offer a very personal, warm approach.

Your challenge is you are completely missing the mark on key elements of SEO, CRO (conversion rate optimization) and site promotion. Your first choice is to do it yourself. It's possible but you are in for a long, challenging road. It begins here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo. If you wish to perform your own SEO, then SEOmoz offers the tools to help. You can use the Q&A to get help with many questions and read the blogs to gain many tips. My main concern is it will require a time investment which will take you away from your core business.

Your other choice is to hire a professional SEO. If you go that route I would suggest caution as anyone can call themselves a SEO, and they often have a story to support they are an expert or have experience. Talk with other business owners. A personal recommendation is better then reading reviews. Also, I would avoid any form of trust in a "SEO certification" or any form of SEO rating bureau. I am not aware of any quality one which exists. If you cannot gain a referral from someone you trust, then hire an SEO the way you would an attorney, doctor or any other professional. Ask lots of questions, avoid contracts, and take your time deciding.

Good luck.

[Gardengirl]

Hello,

Thank you for responding. The website is www.vermontapron.com. My errors were duplicate pages related to the blog so I got rid of them, I also had missing meta tags, long descriptions, and too many key words on a page. I fixed everything and disapeared from google.

I would love all and any advice I can get.

Thank you!

[RyanKent]

Without your site's URL, we are left to guess among countless possibilities. I would suggest SEOmoz has a fantastic tool set which can help you improve your rankings if applied correctly. There is an exceptionally helpful community here as well. Let's try to focus on some specifics. Please share your site and the terms you are trying to rank for, and the pages which should rank for those terms.

There are two observations I will offer based on the limited amount of information provides. First, it is possible while making a change to improve your rankings an error was made which negatively affected your rankings. I would also share "apron" and "aprons" are very generic terms with many sites likely competing for rankings. I'll also share that being in "the top 3 pages" of a search engine is generally not helpful. Most people simply look at the 1st page of results. Improving from page 10 to page 3 is nice in theory. Practically speaking you started somewhere people will not find you, and you ended up in another place where you are unlikely to be found.