Failing Miserably - Should I Just Bin This Site

[kdaly100]

I am in the last weeks of my 3 months paid subscription with SEOMOZ and very sad to go.

The main reason is that my website design business site is delivering no business to me at the moment.  Zero - zip - nada.  It has been live for the past 4 years and cumulatively it has probably paid for few beers and pizza.  Most of my business has been through word of mouth and not through direct traffic to the site.  I had really hoped the site would be the sweet 25% extra.  Now the overall website business is reasonably healthy but I cant understand what I am doing worng with the site.

I have tried and failed to optimise and am at my wits end what to do with it.  If anything my ranking is dropping over the past months.

Could any of you guys give me some ideas and tips before I literally hang up the shingle on this site and start from scratch with a new design and revision.

I want to rank for website design and as we all know you need to be above the fold on page 1 to do this but I think my overall design and strategy for this site is flawed and I should start again.  But if you have ideas then shout before I head over the high Irish sierras for better lands.

http://www.grangewebdesign.com is the site - feel free to check it out and give tips -

[ShaMenz]

That's great Kieran!

Chew slowly and savor your progress at it happens

Just a couple of things I thought to mention in case you hadn't caught up with them yet...

• On-page reports in the Pro App show you the on-page elements you can improve, including things like keyword usage, amount of text etc. The trick with these is that you have to load the keywords you want to optimize for in the campaign. Don't worry if it seems to want to apply keywords to the wrong pages, just use the manual selector at top of page to choose keyword and then type in the URL you want.

• Not sure how the timing works for you, but there is a Weekly Welcome Webinar for Pro members every Friday morning (Seattle time). When you sign up for it on the Webinars Page there is an opportunity to tell Aaron if there are particular things you would like to learn more about.

Of course, if you already knew about these things, just ignore my ramblings

Have a great day,

Sha

[kdaly100]

Wow Sha

Thanks for the words above - you are right on the nail and I already made some changes.  I am doing a root and branches change now to the language I use and the We v. I that is prevalent throughout the site which reads badly.

I am a terrible speller and your points on even these simple points make sense and I have corrected this glaring grammatical error and I increased the amount of words on main page,  added my Google Places map and wrote a little bit more about me as well.

I am now working through ALL my 106 blog posts to make them crisper, with better keywords and of greater value as a lot of them were written in haste and need work and proper spelling (!!)

I am revisiting my decision to leave SEOMOZ and may stay a little longer as even this postalone is worth the fee for this month!!  I hadn't actually realised I had a once a month private question either so I am lining that one up.

LAstly I am starting to munch on the elephant.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Keiran,

After reading the comments here and taking a very quick look at your site I would say just a few things (since I am playing hookey from a project to recharge with a cuppa and really must get back to meet a deadline

1. Please DO NOT ignore the text errors on your site. While many view this as a minor issue, there are some other things to consider. You are in the web design business. Errors are NOT an SEO issue, but a conversion issue!

   First, there is a typographical error on your home page which has completely changed the message you are trying to convey to potential customers "You do need any technical knowledge". While those of us in the business understand what you are trying to say and will read over the mistake, potential customers with little or no knowledge of web design may at the very least find themselves questioning whether it is a mistake. Some will even take it to mean that they need technical knowledge if you build their site!

   The other very significant problem with errors in your text is that you are sending a message to potential clients. Remember you are selling a service which requires you to build pages full of text.  If your own website is full of errors, the message you send is that the websites you build are likely to also be full of errors. That is without even considering the secondary message that there may be an issue with attention to detail in your company

   Having read a blog post I am surmising that part of the error problem may be your reliance on an editor to catch the errors. While it may be alerting you to obvious spelling and typos, it is not letting you know when you have repeated words etc.

   Yes, I'm a self confessed word nerd so I'm always going to be sensitive to the error thing, but in this case it is all about the sales message you are sending.

2. The home page feels a little unfinished with the 3rd column and service sections looking empty and to be honest I would be looking to get some more text into the page. I would also make sure that text adds some more local emphasis (not just the county name, but some more specific references to your location). Have you claimed your local business profiles in Google Places, Bing and the best known citation sites? The links in these profiles will provide some trust signals and increase your chance of moving that page 1 keyword above the fold.

3. You are missing out on some nice keyword inclusion opportunities with your Blog Titles which also appear on your home page via the feed. Consider perhaps - "If I Had A Hammer - Could I Create Your Website In A Day?". Two things here actually. First, including some relevant keywords and second, talking to your prospective client in the first person. The text and images on your site are your first face-to-face meeting with your client. Speak directly to them and you have a much better chance of engaging them - that is the first step to converting them

If I were you I would keep the Pro account a little longer, do all the reading Stephen suggested and use the Q&A forum to learn and ask for help. Don't forget your monthly private question where you get to ask SEOmoz staff and Associates for specific help too.

Also - when the problem seems insurmountable, remember two things ...

• The heart of this community is TAGFEE and that means help is close by.
• Best way to eat an elephant - one mouthful at a time!!

Oops ...back to my deadline!

Hope this helps,

Sha

[firstconversion]

An alternate view:

Specific comments like fixing spelling mistakes, get better anchor text or redirects, is doing more damage than good here

It leads to false hope that this will help rank for the term "web design" and that Kieran will rank for this if he "just tries hard enough"

If you have been here 3 months and think that trying to rank for "web design" is a good business move, then yes, let the SEOmoz contract lapse if the money is an important factor. Read the blog, read everything on this site in the last year

The problems you face are not analytics or SEO or anything OSE measures - its understanding how the web works, understanding how customers are going to react when they see your website.

Seeing your website, Id say your best bet is personal recommendations. Knock the site into shape to convert people you send their personally, and don't waste time or energy on SEO

S

[kdaly100]

No problem thank you for commenting.

[kdaly100]

Thanks Ryan.  I have my graphics guy working on cleaning up the logo which Is not great.  I will look at the spelling errors and of course I don't take offense in fact go as hard as you want.

I appreciate the comment on focusing the level of expertise at least in terms of on site.  One of the items I need to do is work back through all my blog posts over the past year and tidy them up as I know the need a ton of work in the first place and this is an area I will work on,

[ed123456]

Yes that was my comment's meaning. Sorry that I wasn't clear.

[kdaly100]

Thanks Nicholas  - I have redirected that contact number page  - careless to say the least.  I am on page one for website design cork but below the fold

I will look more closely at my index page - any thoughts welcome of course but thanks for the feedback to date.

[kdaly100]

Thanks Sean.  I agree that Website Design is competitive and is probably aiming high.  I will try and aim for website design Cork.

Most of the forum comments were done without link building in mind and I suspect that if I didn't use real name in a lot of these cases my post would not be accepted.

However the guest post space is somewhere I will investigate and see what impact it will have.

[AdoptionHelp]

I would suggest finding a niche market and going for that. As one example, you list wordpress, drupal, and joomla as your area's of expertise, and go on to say you can provide expertise in any other CMS. You may find more success in picking one, and becoming a recognized expert in that CMS specifically. Also focus locally. You still haven't reached page 1 for "web design cork", so that'd be a good first goal.

I also noticed some spelling errors and non-transparent colors in your logo, little things that would stop me from contracting business services from someone. I mean no offense, but those should be fixed asap.

[USHoleInOne]

By looking at your site I still feel like you could be doing a better job with your on-page seo and also with the content on your index page.

I would start researching local keywords and work from there. "Website Design" is too broad, IMO. Maybe start with Website Design firm in Cork, Ireland, or something like that.

Also, by Googling your phone number I was able to find your old site/design, this could be resulting in some duplicate content.

[seanmccauley]

Sorry double post please delete

[seanmccauley]

I think what he's saying is, ranking for 'website design' is going to be really, really tough - it's a highly competitive term. You'll need a DA of MUCH higher than 30 to be ranking for that term. Which means building links from more authoritative websites.  I noticed that some of your best (i.e. highest domain authority) links  were forum/blog comments which probably aren't passing much link juice. I would look to get guest blog posts on higher domain authority sites that can link back to you. And remember that all important anchor text - a lot of your links have the anchor text 'Kieran Daly' rather than 'website design'. Not forgetting the value of writing great linkable content, of course

[kdaly100]

Not sure what you mean?? Can you clarify???

[ed123456]

You want to rank for "website design", bold suspect others want the same. Mozbar states your DA as 30. Surely thats ambitious. I am pretty new to this as well but it looks like you want to be playing for a different term.