Website seo dropping ranking. Move to WordPress?

Solus · 9 Jan 2017 at 23:37

I know I've made myself to look incompetent in this thread, I am simply just unfamiliar with how the Web has developed since my site was made originally back in 2010.

I think I am getting to grips with WordPress and would much rather sort it myself if possible.

AHarvey · 10 Jan 2017 at 00:21

Solus said:
I know I've made myself to look incompetent in this thread, I am simply just unfamiliar with how the Web has developed since my site was made originally back in 2010.

I think I am getting to grips with WordPress and would much rather sort it myself if possible.

Everyone appears incompetent if they have no experience of a subject, what's important is you're willing to learn and try it yourself

Wordpress is simple and powerful at the same time, I've never enjoyed making templates etc with it but using it and SEO is very easy.

dmsims · 10 Jan 2017 at 00:45

Don't forget security, Wordpress is a primary target

I would suggest Shield or Wordfence

You have got rid of the admin account ?

Jasonpoon · 10 Jan 2017 at 06:56

dmsims said:
Don't forget security, Wordpress is a primary target

I would suggest Shield or Wordfence

You have got rid of the admin account ?

I like wordfence a lot and would also recommend not using admin as a username as whenever somone has attempted to bruteforce my site admin is the most common username they try, You can even set it up to block there IP address if they try and use admin as a username

Solus · 10 Jan 2017 at 08:22

dmsims said:
Don't forget security, Wordpress is a primary target

I would suggest Shield or Wordfence

You have got rid of the admin account ?

It's an admin account but the username is different. Did I do good?

Hyburnate · 10 Jan 2017 at 10:49

Solus said:
It's an admin account but the username is different. Did I do good?

Yes - From what I remember from my research with sites I manage (I tend to use wordpress for the other users sake), Wordfence can be quite a heavy plugin meaning it can actually slow down load times. However I route most of the sites through a CDN and they're still rapid. Without a CDN it's another matter however.

Wordfence basically will block any brute force attacks etc.

Solus · 10 Jan 2017 at 12:41

I shall look up using a cdn, thank you again for all of your advice. I do know someone else had used a "pirate" theme on WordPress some time back, nothing got hacked as such but his bandwidth usage shot through the roof.

Is the free version of Wordfence sufficient or should I purchase?

AHarvey · 10 Jan 2017 at 14:05

Only used the free on myself, works very well.

Hyburnate · 10 Jan 2017 at 16:18

As above, the free works sufficiently

- Not forgetting if you choose to use CloudFlare you get their huge filtering ability which cuts a lot of crap out too

Etheco · 10 Jan 2017 at 17:14

https://wordpress.org/plugins/autodescription/ Is a great replacement for Yoast SEO, And so much more lightweight overall.

Hyburnate · 10 Jan 2017 at 17:50

Etheco said:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/autodescription/ Is a great replacement for Yoast SEO, And so much more lightweight overall.

That looks quite good - I'll push this out to one of my sites and see, thanks

Kingdom34 · 8 May 2017 at 11:02

Ive just come across this page and running my own website, a car sticker website. I'm struggling with sales. Does anyone have any suggestions on SEO guides or can point me in the right direction from some professionals? If you want to know my website to check it out, I can give you the site address. That's if anyone has any input that they are willing to give me or some direction. As you can tell I'm a new to all of this.

dmsims · 8 May 2017 at 11:08

Post up the URL here - it's not always SEO......

Kingdom34 · 8 May 2017 at 12:43

www.ratedvinyl.com

dmsims · 8 May 2017 at 13:04

Not a fan .....

Logo is huge (did I say HUGE), lots of confusing menus/BIG red buttons all competing for the eye

e.g. Click shop (I would expect to be taken to the shop but it just scrolls down to another set of massive lines of text /menus and huge competing buttons

I then clicked Honda Civic 8th gen and it returned me to the home page ?

IMHO you really need to stop repeating things, simplify the structure and guide your shopper straight to where they want to be

There are no contact details visible at all above the fold or even on the entire homepage ?

Sorry

Kingdom34 · 8 May 2017 at 13:37

dmsims said:
Not a fan .....

Logo is huge (did I say HUGE), lots of confusing menus/BIG red buttons all competing for the eye

e.g. Click shop (I would expect to be taken to the shop but it just scrolls down to another set of massive lines of text /menus and huge competing buttons

I then clicked Honda Civic 8th gen and it returned me to the home page ?

IMHO you really need to stop repeating things, simplify the structure and guide your shopper straight to where they want to be

There are no contact details visible at all above the fold or even on the entire homepage ?

Sorry

Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.
I will have a think, discuss with my website developer and try and simplify things. I do see your point.

The click on the big red button is so that I can then direct the customer to which menu, but I see what you mean there. The second part with the menu's probably need to be on the second page....so 1 click and into the shop rather than 2.

Cuchulain · 8 May 2017 at 13:57

Kingdom34 said:
www.ratedvinyl.com

You really need to look at getting the shop part of your site responsive. Google's wants developers to adopt a mobile first attitude towards building sites. I'd also start serving your site over https, not just the shop as google gives a small ranking boost for that and it can be done for free (so long as you're not using crap hosting) with Lets Encrypt. I'd also be having a word with your developer as there are number of issues with the coding, you can run a free test indicating the issues here - http://nibbler.silktide.com

Kingdom34 · 8 May 2017 at 14:32

Cuchulain said:
You really need to look at getting the shop part of your site responsive. Google's wants developers to adopt a mobile first attitude towards building sites. I'd also start serving your site over https, not just the shop as google gives a small ranking boost for that and it can be done for free (so long as you're not using crap hosting) with Lets Encrypt. I'd also be having a word with your developer as there are number of issues with the coding, you can run a free test indicating the issues here - http://nibbler.silktide.com

Thank you, il look into this. Really appreciate the constructive responses.

dmsims · 8 May 2017 at 16:16

@Kingdom34 I am glad you took the critique in the way it was intended, sometimes it can seem harsh

I agree the shop almost looks like a different site

Search gives strange results: type Honda and you don't get anything Honda specific for a few pages

Kingdom34 · 8 May 2017 at 16:23

Tbh I don't rely on the website for sales, its a platform to improve in the future, it was built all in for £150 so its repaid me, but at the same time I want it right and corrected to generate revenue.

I know it isn't efficient so I'm asking here to learn and improve. Its good to be honest and get honest feedback.

So thanks all.