How relevant is relevant?

[T0BY]

My highest domain authority link to my website ZenPlugs.com is from Instructables.com. I have been in two minds as to whether the links are of benefit for some time. The site is highly regarded and the page content is of high-quality and has had hundreds of thousands of visitors but the content is not directly relevant to my ZenPlugs site, although there is a short passage regarding the ear plugs on the page. I also get traffic from the links. I have tried adding and removing the links but have not seen any obvious influence in either direction, although it is rather hard to tell. Do you think this link is relevant and how much does it matter?  Almost all my other links are very relevant.

[CommT]

EGOL - you always have something brilliant to say. I salute you!

Toby - you could pay a fortune for advice like EGOL has just given you for free, I really hope you take it on board.

[isaac663]

The link is from a guest post correct?  I think these types of links have been largely devalued by Google, even from high D.A sites.

Link doesn't seem remotely relevant either.

+1 for John's response.  Some deep keyword research should help you 'tune' your copy, title tag etc to gain more relevant traffic.

Isaac.

[EGOL]

I think the homepage needs more work.

[EGOL]

I believe that the first paragraph is worth two hours.  Maybe more.

The current first paragraph sells your product short.  It still has several errors.

You are selling peace.  You are selling protection from noise.  You are selling protection from germs.  You are selling better observations of a person's health.  Each of these sells to many types of people, in many different environments, engaged in a variety of activities.  Some of them are of jugular importance.

Your product can be useful to every person who needs quiet, is exposed to loud or annoying noise, or needs to make careful observations.  Students in dormitories, workers at construction sites, a diversity of health care workers, auto mechanics, connoisseurs of fine music, and many others.  Your first paragraph blends these together with no distinction and does not personalize it for anyone.

Personalization is the key to making a sale.

Your opening statement might be one paragraph, two paragraphs, a paragraph and a bullet list.  I don't know.  But, don't think of it in terms of words on containers.  Think of it in what you want people to do.

What do you want people to do when they land on your homepage?   Your opening statements have the opportunity to appeal to the many types of people who enter the site, sort them into candidates for buying your several types of products, and send them to a new location where they can see the wonders of a product that is designed specifically for them.  This is very difficult work.

My honest opinion is that your homepage is far from ready.

How much time do you think I spend composing answers here in Q&A.  They might be read once, by someone in a hurry, who I do not know?  How much time should you spend to capture the attention of potentially thousands of people per month, for the next many years, selling products that you have spent countless hours creating?

Don't be in a hurry.  You should actually be making three or four different versions of your homepage, placing each of them in CrazyEgg, and seeing how people behave when they arrive.  Are they doing what you want them to do?

People at Scribendi can help you with your writing.  People at SiteTuners can help you get people to do what you want them to do.  I am just blathering to open your eyes.

It isn't ready.  It isn't close.  That's my opinion.  Two hours minimum.  Done in multiple versions, critiqued by smart people, tested on lots of visitors.

Good luck.

[ClaytonJ]

Yes, ideally you go through them all.

Poor grammar is a barrier to customer conversion.  If a potential customer hits a barrier they know your competitor is only one click away.

Poor grammar = no trust.  Would you trust a site to post you a package that writes sentences that are not easily understandable?

It can be painful but I believe it is necessary, it is time consuming maybe consider outsourcing the copywriting - ie obtaining a third party to check / correct it all for you. Cheap options include Freelancer & Elance etc. It should not cost very much.

[T0BY]

I am going to go through and do this with all the main landing pages. Do you think it is worth also doing this with all of the blog  posts? I think there are about 50! I think the main problem will be complex sentences in these posts.

[T0BY]

That's very helpful, thanks!  I'll do that.

[T0BY]

Thanks, I owe you one big time!

[ClaytonJ]

Toby

I would keep the link.  It is a good link, indirect but worthy of keeping. Takes so much effort to get a link nowadays that I hold on to them like gold when I get one. I check links with open site explorer.

Moving away from content have you considered reviewing the title tag & h1. The word molded x 3 appears in the title and it does not appear 3 x relevant to search. ie more people are googling "custom" in the uk.  Your first paragraph is more empathetic to what customers are typing in than your title tag.  Semrush is a great tool to have a look at for keywords and there are countless articles on it.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors

A bit of a tweak with your title tag and h1 and that may also assist on search volume. It is a niche area so I think you could get some upside.

Hope this assists.

[EGOL]

Nice work!

[T0BY]

I just Hemingway'd my front page and it is certainly much simpler and more readable, thanks for the tip!

[T0BY]

This is excellent advice, thanks!  I will look into this.

[T0BY]

Thanks Andy, it here http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-pair-of-Angel-Wings/

[T0BY]

My goodness! Thank you, that slipped through the net!

[EGOL]

Great news.

Using the combination of Hemingway, Grammarly and then sending the piece out to Scribendi can add two or more hours to the time required for me to produce an article plus $30, $50 or $70 to Scribendi, but my articles are so much better.

If you publish on a site where the visitors are picky or erudite this is a good investment.  On a retail site, your most important sales pages should have a very low reading level with all problems chased out.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

if you are using Chrome, Grammarly will monitor your email, moz posts, wordpress, etc for improvements and you can accept them with a click.

I am indeed! That will also be getting installed!

Right now, I am just stunned at how much better the opening paragraph on my 'About' page now sounds! hemingwayapp absolutely rocks!

That's me not sleeping tonight - I have a site to improve

-Andy

[EGOL]

Great.  Glad you are interested.

Everyday is copywriting day here.

btw... if you are using Chrome, Grammarly will monitor your email, moz posts, wordpress, etc for improvements and you can accept them with a click.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Very nice EGOL! It's been a long time since my copywriting days, so will certainly be interesting to look at

-Andy

[EGOL]

I have been using Hemingwayapp.com and Grammarly to improve my writing.  They have free and paid versions.   I also get professional editing from a human at Scribendi.  Worth every minute and every penny.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I think that putting two hours of work into this opening single paragraph could help you rank better in the search engines because I do believe that Google demotes poor copy

^^ This!

Spend a bit of money and hire a professional copywriter to help out if you need to. It can work wonders!

Do you have the page with the link in it for me to take a look?

-Andy

[EGOL]

Probably more valuable than this link is to proof-read your first paragraph.

There are spelling errors, missing punctuation, incorrect punctuation, incorrect verb tense, missing verbs, mixed topic sentences, capitalization problems and more.    I was going to simply post a corrected paragraph here but I ran into a sentence that starts out talking about hearing protection, and then changes channels to keeping water out, then changes again to buying in bulk.  I don't know the product well enough to pitch the different benefits clearly.

I think that putting two hours of work into this opening single paragraph could help you rank better in the search engines because I do believe that Google demotes poor copy.   It might also increase your sales because some of your visitors will start reading the current copy and quickly question the product.

The content below the products is also in need of work.