New Site Search Critique
-
Hi
I am a huge fan of the SEOMOZ site and this great community which has helped me learn the current SEO skills I have now which are still very basic compared to the pros on the forum.
I have tried to follow best practice regarding onsite and technical seo when developing my new site www.cheapfindergames.com and I would really appreciate it if experts on the forum could spare a minute to critique the site from a search perspective please
This will give any elements of what onsite and technical SEO I done well and what aspects still need work.
I am currently trying to build quality links and social mentions into the site which will take time, and the site has been designed around usability and conversions.
Many Thanks
Ian
-
Re: item 1 - the answer can be found in the first response to this Q&A: http://www.seomoz.org/q/i-need-help-with-htaccess-redirect
If you would like to learn more about htaccess, an excellent resource is here: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/the-ultimate-guide-to-htaccess-files/
Re: item 3, no damage
Re: item 7 - I did share a suggestion. I prefer to use the home page to target the site's brand. I use inner pages which are 1-click from the home page to target the site's main keywords. Your site can target 100s of keywords so unless one particular keywords is highly dominate over the others, this approach is my preference.
Re: item 10 - no. The W3C is the governing body for HTML/CSS code. I was referring to using their validator tool to ensure the code used on your site is valid.
Re: sitemaps, there are numerous software apps available to create a sitemap. Find one you like and set a CRON job to run as needed to generate a new sitemap.
-
Hi Ryan
Thanks for the great feedback. Coming back to some of your points
1.) How can I resolve this in the .htaccess file - what script is required so that it points to http://www.cheapfindergames.com therefore reducing canonical urls.
3.) Would this cause any damage if it is left as it is?
7.) Any suggestions on what you feel would work? Perhaps
Video Games Price Comparison - Cheapfindergames.com ?
10.) Do you mean putting javascript and css in external files rather than inline?
+ What would you recommend to create an XML sitemap, as the site is a dynamic site which changes throughout the day
-
Hi Ian,
As you requested I have taken a look at your site and would share some initial items which can be improved from a SEO perspective:
1. You have duplicated pages. You shared your home page URL as http://www.cheapfindergames.com. If you select your logo in the upper-right corner of your page, it shows the URL as http://www.cheapfindergames.com/index.php. Both URLs load which is an SEO issue. Note: the HOME link in your footer has the same issue.
2. Your site lacks a 404 page. Provide a helpful 404 page with your site's navigation and search box.
3. Your robots.txt page blocks the /retailer.php page which is unnecessary since you have a redirect in place.
4. Drop the technology extension from your URLs. For example your "About" page URL is http://www.cheapfindergames.com/aboutus.php. It is not helpful to users nor search engines to know it is a "php" page. Additionally the technology may change in the future causing unnecessary redirects. Try the following URL instead: http://www.cheapfindergames.com/aboutus
5. Organize your social engagement. You have a large facebook block, a tiny twitter widget and then over off to the side is your G+ block. Try offering a single clean block for all your social sites.
6. Your home page text block has grammar issues "...from the major uk retailers to bring you’re the best price and deal."
7. As Kieran shared, the title should be adjusted. It's often best for your home page to focus your brand "Cheap Finder Games" and allow an inner page focus each of the many keywords you wish to target. If you decide otherwise, pick one keyword focus for your page.
8. Your mailing list seems to be the primary means for you to keep in contact with visitors. You may want to offer a clearer Call To Action for signup.
9. Your meta description is too long and a bit unfocused.
10. You can do a bit of code clean up and allow your code to validate.
These tips will hopefully give you some initial direction with your site. Best of luck.
-
Thanks Kieran I understand now
Totally agree and every day I try and improve it, I was just looking for additional insight into perhaps things i might have missed that would have an affect on rankings.
-
In the footer of the page you have 3 links to these loactions but the links are just to the existing page.
Also when you say you have 99% covered the fact of the matter is that you never have everything covered and for a nice like yours I would spend time every day looking at my content working on various aspects, checking my keywords, and a host of other items.
-
Thanks yes the keywords are xbox 360, PS3, computer games, Wii and then the long tail keyphrase would be the likes of Best Price of Fifa 12 Xbox 360 which I cover in the details page
http://www.cheapfindergames.com/games-fifa-12-xbox-360/B005A2BDZY
- you mention " Wii/ PS3 / Xbox links are only directed to the home page" could you explain what you mean by this please?
ALSO if any other experts can locate anything I have missed with regard to onsite and technical SEO it would be great to know, or have I covered the 99% of what's required.
-
From a conversions point of view I do not think the landing page encourages immediate action for people arriving there.
Your Title tag
Compare Prices – Best deals offers on computer games for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC | Cheapfindergames
looks a bit wordy and I am not sure if it is focused on your keywords (which you don't mention but I assume are games.
Plus as an FYI our Wii/ PS3 / Xbox links are only directed to the home page at the moment so might be worth correcting (actually I wouldn't have them twice on the page
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Page Replication on Search
Hi. We recently created a Christmas category page on our eCommerce website (christowhome.co.uk). Earlier today, I Googled ‘Christow Christmas Silhouette Lights’ (Christow being the name of our website and Christmas silhouette lights being one of the sub-categories we recently created). I was curious to see how the page appeared on search. Bizarrely, the page appeared multiple times on search (if you click on the link above, it should show you the search results). As you can see, multiple meta titles and descriptions have been created for the same page. This is something that is affecting a number of our Christmas category pages. I don't quite understand why this has happened. We recently added filters to the category. Could the filters be responsible? Any idea how I can prevent this from happening? How I can stop Google indexing these weird replica pages? Many thanks, Dave
Technical SEO | | Davden0 -
Tracing Redirects to a Site
I wonder if anyone has used any tools where you can trace the redirects pointing to a site? I know there are a number of tools out there that can be used to check where a URL redirects to, but I was wondering if anyone has used a tool where I could trace all redirects with the final URL? I am using this for competitor research so I don't have access to Analytics or Webmaster Tools.
Technical SEO | | BeattieGroup0 -
Multiple domains pointing to same site
Over the years, we have acquired a great number of variations of our domains, or industry-specific domains to protect our brand. Currently, the majority of those domains are parked at the registrars. Would we do any harm to our rankings if we pointed the dormant domains to our website (www.ellsworth.com)? If not, are there any recommendations as the best way to do this, or just point them to the same IP?
Technical SEO | | Ellsworth0 -
Search for 404s on Sandbox
Can I verify an IP in google webmaster tools to search for any 404s? Or maybe i could do it with seomoz tools? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
Site Hosting Question
We are UK based web designers who have recently been asked to build a website for an Australian Charity. Normally we would host the website in the UK with our current hosting company, but as this is an Australian website with an .au domain I was wondering if it would be better to host it in Australia. If it is better to host it in Australia, I would appreciate if someone could give me the name of a reasonably priced hosting company. Thanks Fraser
Technical SEO | | fraserhannah0 -
Partial Site Move -- Tell Google Entire Site Moved?
OK this one's a little confusing, please try to follow along. We recently went through a rebranding where we brought a new domain online for one of our brands (we'll call this domain 'B' -- it's also not the site linked to in my profile, not to confuse things). This brand accounted for 90% of the pages and 90% of the e-comm on the existing domain (we'll call the existing domain 'A') . 'A' was also redesigned and it's URL structure has changed. We have 301s in place on A that redirect to B for those 90% of pages and we also have internal 301s on A for the remaining 10% of pages whose URL has changed as a result of the A redesign What I'm wondering is if I should tell Google through webmaster tools that 'A' is now 'B' through the 'Change of Address' form. If I do this, will the existing products that remain on A suffer? I suppose I could just 301 the 10% of URLs on B back to A but I'm wondering if Google would see that as a loop since I just got done telling it that A is now B. I realize there probably isn't a perfect answer here but I'm looking for the "least worst" solution. I also realize that it's not optimal that we moved 90% of the pages from A to B, but it's the situation we're in.
Technical SEO | | badgerdigital0 -
Mobile site ranking in desktop searches
A robots.txt file is properly implemented on the mobile site to block Googlebot from crawling, yet, when running a site: query for the site in google, it still returns over 104,000 pages from the mobile site in the index. Why could this be happening?
Technical SEO | | craigsmith3330 -
How does having an SSL impact search optimization?
My site has a forced redirect on the home page to https://. But that's only on the home page...other site pages are visible. How does this impact search engines crawling my site?
Technical SEO | | AquariumDigital0