Why SEO
-
Hi Guys,
it's going to be a long one so thank you from advance for your patience.
First i wanted you to i am new to SEO world and this world excites me
In the last 30 days, i started to check my companies (i am employee not an owner) website in SEO point of view.
What we do: Online grocery shopping and home delivery
I will share with you some of the results:
5482 errors for duplicate page content
8850 errors for duplicate page title
37 title missing or empty
some pages had 4+ H1 tags
many more HTML errors.
page authority 42/100
domain authority 40/100
We have no listing
163 back-links domain to our Dallas & Chicago website
and much more
another thing i checked was where are we for the keywords that we are interested in:
"online grocery shopping Dallas" - position 1 in Google search
shop for groceries online Dallas - Position 1 in Google search
shop for groceries from home Dallas - Position 1 in Google search
And some more and the same for Chicago
I Did all the searches in new incognito window
My Question - how come we build our website so bad, with no Google+, we have very few back-links(compare to our competitors) and the page and domain rank are so low and still we are in the 2 or 3 highest position in Google search
One more question - Why to invest time in fixing all the SEO issues i found?
You are all welcome to have a SEO view in my website
Thank you vest much
Ivgi
-
Hi Ivgi,
I'm responding on this thread rather than on the first one I responded to. I received the email you sent me and took a very quick look at your company's website. Within the scope of Q&A, I'm afraid no on can do your keyword research for you - that's a big process that will require an investment of multiple hours of time. What I can do is give you my honest take on your situation in hopes that it will help your company to make a good decision.
-
I think there is a lack of clarity in the business model. I am not familiar with the online shopping business model and have not worked with this type of business before, but it seems to me that if your company only delivers groceries to two places, then you aren't just an 'online grocery delivery', you are in some way a local business. I'm not positive about this, but whomever handles the work for your business needs to totally clarify what the business model is. You've stated that you deliver to two cities. Then I see something on the site about nationwide delivery. Which is it?
-
The website is not giving me any type of value proposition. Why should I be shopping online? Why should I be shopping online with your company? What is the value? How do I get groceries? Who delivers them, when, etc? The site isn't telling me.
-
The website copy needs a complete overhaul. It appears to have been written by an ESL copywriter, and as the audience is likely to be primarily speaking English as their first language, the problems with the copy will not instill trust in the quality of the business.
-
It may be that the overall architecture of the website needs to be re-done, and for sure, the company needs a clear strategy for exactly what they are doing. The front entry page appears to indicate that there are 2 different sections to the site, one for each city. But what about the nationwide offer?
These are just a few of things I see in my brief glance at your website. It is my belief that your company's success depends on hiring a professional SEO and Usability team to do a complete audit of the website and create and implement a strategy, based upon market research, that will enable the business to clarify is model, message and promotion options. If they are expecting you to do this in-house, and you are, as you say, a beginner, then the company's expectations are not on-track.
I would strongly urge the business to choose the very best firm they can afford. You need real pros to do this right...perhaps check out the list of recommended companies here on this website.
http://www.seomoz.org/article/recommended
I hope my suggestions are useful. I truly do believe that your company needs expert assistance with their online marketing and should not be expecting an in-house novice to get them results. That is too much responsibility to put on one staff member's shoulders, given the size, scope and needs of the website and the business.
-
-
Robert and Chris,
First many many thanks for your answers, looks like you spent real time investigating my question and i really appreciate that.
Just to make things clear, i really think this website should be fixed.
I didn't mentioned that in my original question because i wanted to get answers that come "from the stomach" and not only answers that will try to help the "poor me" who don't have his boss OK to spend company time on fixing it.
I think that when you build something - first off all build it right - and with so many issue obviously this website wasn't build right.
Second - As mentioned before i am new to SEO and SEM - so Robert if you can explain how can i find better KW for this industry(as you mention in your replay) i will appreciate that.
BTW - what "marginal ranking" is?
Anyway - i am going to continue with my report, i am employee in this company not and outsider that they higher. i really want this website to succeed.
Chris, the traffic is very low, but these KW have low traffic to begin with so i cant expect high traffic, what i need to find are relevant KW for this industry in my local location(Chicago & DFW) that has higher traffic and that i can target.
Any ideas on how to work to find these KWs?
Thank you both again for your answers
IVGI
-
For question #1: You don't have that many direct competitors for those search terms and the overall strength of the homepage isn't bad, compared to those that you do have.
For question #2: If you weren't already being overwhelmed by traffic for keywords like "online grocery shopping Dallas" you may look to branch out and try to get traffic for terms like "online grocery shopping", "buy pistachio and cherry tart online", "online gourmet foods", etc. Someone in that scenario might look to eliminate all possible hurdles that stand in the way of ranking for those terms. Such a person might add some additional content to those pages, as well. But, if you're happy with how things are going for you now, then there's probably no reason to worry about any of those things.
-
In terms of the overall question, Why SEO, I would say don't. Just wait and see what happens.
Now, how did it feel when I said that? Shock maybe? Concern maybe?
That is the answer. If you don't what marginal ranking status (rankings are not as important as sales IMO) to go away, you will have to improve this.
**"how come we build our website so bad" **Typically, when it shows like this, someone was cutting corners and did not want to pay for a really funcional, fully SEO'd site with prior thought given to business model, strategy, most important items to sell and why, competitive analysis, a real web dev team, real web dev experience, real web design experience (not pretty sites, functional and pretty sites with good UI/UX). Sorry, but that is reality. I never cease to be amazed at how very bright business people end up with a ____ site because they got cheap on the one thing they should have spent money on. Think about it, it's an ONLINE grocery store...
Without going into a massive list (I just spent 10-15 minutes in research), I will say this you have more issues than you even realize. On top of that, the KW's you are ranking for are ok. But, they are not the best searched terms around your industry. So, where do you rank for those terms?
Here is the bright spot and I mean this: They hired you and you are digging and researching.
But, with companies that take this type approach, typically what we see is this: someone comes to us saying hey, we need help, blah blah blah, really ready to fix it, blah blah, blah, and can you give us a proposal? Sounds good so far! Early in my career as a marketing firm, we would detail what all needed to change, when, why, and cost. The business then takes that to India, cousin Wilbur who once worked the phones at GoDaddy, or says to their bright new employee who found it all:"You have the list of what needs to be fixed; go fix it!"So, that is all I can give you. Don't fix it at your own risk as others in your vertical are way ahead of you.
I sincerely wish you luck as you go forward,
Robert
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
-
Parallax Scrolling when used with “hash bang” technique is good for SEO or not?
Hello friends, One of my client’s website http://chakracentral.com/ is using Parallax scrolling with most of the URLs containing hash “#” tag. Please see few sample URLs below: http://chakracentral.com/#panelBlock4 (service page)
Algorithm Updates | | chakraseo
http://chakracentral.com/#panelBlock3 (about-us page) I am planning to use “hash bang” technique on this website so that Google can read all the internal pages (containing hash “#” tag) with the current site architecture as the client is not comfortable in changing it. Reference: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started#2-set-up-your-server-to-handle-requests-for-urls-that-contain-escaped_fragment But the problem that I am facing is that, lots of industry experts do not consider parallax websites (even with hash bang technique) good for SEO especially for mobile devices. See some references below: http://searchengineland.com/the-perils-of-parallax-design-for-seo-164919
https://moz.com/blog/parallax-scrolling-websites-and-seo-a-collection-of-solutions-and-examples So please find my queries below for which I need help: 1. Will it be good to use the “hash bang” technique on this website and perform SEO to improve the rankings on desktop as well as mobile devices?
2. Is using “hash bang” technique for a parallax scrolling website good for only desktop and not recommended for mobile devices and that we should have a separate mobile version (without parallax scrolling) of the website for mobile SEO?
3. Parallax scrolling technique (even with "hash bang") is not at all good for SEO for both desktop as well as mobile devices and should be avoided if we want to have a good SEO friendly website?
4. Any issue with Google Analytics tracking for the same website? Regards,
Sarmad Javed0 -
Old school SEO tools / software / websites
Hey Mozzers, I am doing some research and wonder if you can help me out? Before Moz, Hubspot, Majestic, Screaming Frog and all the other awesome SEO tools we use today what were the SEO tools / software / websites that were used for aiding SEO? I guess we can add the recently closed Yahoo! Directory for starters! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | RikkiD220 -
SEO for International Expansion - Best Strategies
Looking for some Best Strategies in SEO for International Expansion . We were based in a single country till one year back and then decided to expand to other English speaking countries as well. Traffic from SEO for us is around 1.3 million users only from the single country and we rank in top#3 for 90% of our targeted keyword bank of 45000+ keywords. We just launched in some new countries like singapore , philippines and few other English speaking countries with really unique content and I wanted to check whether I can use my mother domain or use any other strategies for growing SEO faster in other countries. Any inputs on scaling up SEO traffic internationally will be appreciated
Algorithm Updates | | ozil1 -
What is your experience with markups (schema.org) in terms of SEO and best practice learnings?
Hi, I am looking to implement schema markups into a variety of websites and currently wondering about best practices. I am working on energy providers, building material, e-retailers, social association among others. While I understand every single one of these is an individual case, I could do with some advices from you, guys. Which markups would you consider key for search engines? I would have naturally chosen markups to highlight the business name, location and products but there is so much more to schema.org! Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | A_Q0 -
Is My SEO Strategy Doomed?
Hi Mozzers, Second time poster here and still a major rookie with SEO. I run the website http://OrangeOctop.us/, it provides winning tips for video games such as FIFA, NBA 2K, NHL. All of the tips are written by experts and professional gamers. The site has been trying to rank for the term "NHL 14 Tips". To give you some more background info, the actual game, NHL 14, does not come out for another two weeks. I was just being proactive with trying to rank for a term that will be popular in the future. My Wordpress category page, http://orangeoctop.us/nhl14-tips/, ranked as high as #5 for "NHL 14 Tips", but it seems that as it gets closer to the game's release date, I get pushed further down the google rankings. In the most recent Moz crawl, my site just dropped 11 spots. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | orangeoctop.us0 -
Multiple Listings in Results fading Local SEO
Lately I am noticing multiple listings for results seem to be fading away. Example is one domain being listed twice for a search phrase The Home page for example and an Internal Page. Is anyone else seeing this? Safe to say Google wants to see 10+ individual domains per results page?
Algorithm Updates | | bozzie3110 -
SERP and SEO Moz ranking
Until a couple of months ago the predicted SEO Moz ranking for a specific keyword was fairly close to what I actually experienced with my website. However, since then the correlation has not been good. For example, according to SEO Moz I am ranked #1 for a specific keyword with google.ca and google.com yet my site actually shows up consistently at #3 for that keyword. Has anyone else noticed this divergence?
Algorithm Updates | | casper4340 -
How useful is a mobile version of your site (for SEO sake)?
We're investigating a mobile version of our e-commerce site. Is it worth the investment regarding search engine optimization, or is this something that wouldn't have a big effect?
Algorithm Updates | | 9Studios0