Website / SEO help

wonder_lander · 20 Aug 2008 at 21:17

I have created a site using wordpress www.the-pier.co.uk and I'm looking at increasing the number of visitors, isn't everyone!

Looking at my google analytics stats over the last week I have had 730 page views of which 510 where unique and my bounce rate is 48.02%

Is this good / bad or indifferent, should I be paying a great deal of attention to any partilcular key stat?

How can I make the current site better? I have submitted the site to around 500 directories using directory maximiser but these seem to have been very slow on adding and authorising my site.

What should I be looking at for hints on where I need to improve my site? Do I just need to keep steadily adding articles and blog entries?

The adsense revenue has been very low since the site started, any suggestions on ad placement, type of blocks would be useful? I am trying an image ad on the left hand side this week, this was previously text.

Any other hints and tips greatly received as I am trying to make the website sustainable from a hosting cost point of view.

~J~ · 20 Aug 2008 at 21:40

Can't help, and apologies for the slight hijack, but that's gonna have potential to be an interesting site!

Draeger · 20 Aug 2008 at 21:48

~J~ said:
Can't help, and apologies for the slight hijack, but that's gonna have potential to be an interesting site!

I'm thinking the same thing!!!. Nice site!!

You probably know this already, but a quick boost for links etc can be had by joining forums and adding the links to your site into your sig, if allowed by the forum admin staff.

Other than that, plug away at the SEO as you are now and mix up the content when you can.

JIM_BOB7813 · 20 Aug 2008 at 21:52

I am in a similar position, my website has had ~500 unique in the last 30 days (started the site at the end of June), from what I've read, it's all about content really. Your bounce rate is decent, mine is 74%

.

All in One SEO Plugin for Wordpress is supposed to be good, and google webmaster tools provides some good info (yahoo site explorer is OK for looking at backlinks).
Directories are useless for traffic, only good for providing backlinks (for PR), I've added my site to a handful and have had 0 traffic from them, nearly all my traffic comes from search engines (85%)

I recently read an article/blog post that said you really should build the foundations of your site/followers, before you place ads on the site (but how true that is I don't know, although it makes sense to me).

Get an RSS feed, and place a feedburner link near the top of your page. I subscribe to a few blogs using feedburner, and get daily email updates, It's pretty handy.

You need to login to post a comment on your site, I'd change it so anyone can post without registering (people will be more likely to comment), Akismet plugin filters the spam really well.

The buttons at the top of the page are not large enough for some of the font e.g. Bournemouth pier rolls over two lines and the word 'pier' is outside of the box.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ is OK if you want to read up on SEO and find links to SEO websites, but there's also a LOT of crap on that forum, lots of people trying to make money by telling others how to make money online and lots of rubbish.

wonder_lander · 20 Aug 2008 at 22:25

~J~ said:
Can't help, and apologies for the slight hijack, but that's gonna have potential to be an interesting site!

Cheers guys, any other source people can think for articles? I had 10 of the articles written by copywirters at a cost of £30 each (3p per word 1000 word articles) Any cheaper source for reliable copy?

Draeger said:
I'm thinking the same thing!!!. Nice site!!

You probably know this already, but a quick boost for links etc can be had by joining forums and adding the links to your site into your sig, if allowed by the forum admin staff.

Other than that, plug away at the SEO as you are now and mix up the content when you can.

Cheers, I have already joined local sites for skegness and blackpool and my weston super mare page was featured on a wsm forum too.

JIM_BOB7813 said:
I am in a similar position, my website has had ~500 unique in the last 30 days (started the site at the end of June), from what I've read, it's all about content really. Your bounce rate is decent, mine is 74% .

Mine started in 85% range and has dropped the longer the site has been running.

All in One SEO Plugin for Wordpress is supposed to be good, and google webmaster tools provides some good info (yahoo site explorer is OK for looking at backlinks).
Directories are useless for traffic, only good for providing backlinks (for PR), I've added my site to a handful and have had 0 traffic from them, nearly all my traffic comes from search engines (85%)

I get 76% from se, 10 from referral and the rest from direct.

I recently read an article/blog post that said you really should build the foundations of your site/followers, before you place ads on the site (but how true that is I don't know, although it makes sense to me).

I have had the ads on since the site started so can't really see a benfit in removing them now.

Get an RSS feed, and place a feedburner link near the top of your page. I subscribe to a few blogs using feedburner, and get daily email updates, It's pretty handy.

You need to login to post a comment on your site, I'd change it so anyone can post without registering (people will be more likely to comment), Akismet plugin filters the spam really well.

Will look at these two suggestions

The buttons at the top of the page are not large enough for some of the font e.g. Bournemouth pier rolls over two lines and the word 'pier' is outside of the box.

Yeah I'm still not sure of the best way to go here, there are 55 current piers in the UK so I can't really keep just adding buttons, any ideas?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ is OK if you want to read up on SEO and find links to SEO websites, but there's also a LOT of crap on that forum, lots of people trying to make money by telling others how to make money online and lots of rubbish.

Added to my bookmarks, thanks for that!

JIM_BOB7813 · 20 Aug 2008 at 22:49

wonder_lander said:
Yeah I'm still not sure of the best way to go here, there are 55 current piers in the UK so I can't really keep just adding buttons, any ideas?

Maybe place some categories divided by geographical region? North east, south west etc? Or have dropdown menus for each region?

I just noticed your RSS feed at the bottom, I would make the logo orange (like the mozilla RSS which is pretty much the de facto standard) and place it nearer the top of the page. Or maybe keep it the same colour, but just move it to the top of the page/higher up.

wonder_lander · 20 Aug 2008 at 23:04

Cheers JIM BOB, one of the problems is that I found the wordpress template online and haven't a clue how to change the actual layouts about! Guess now is going to be the time to learn. I too didn't see the feed link until you pointed it out!

JIM_BOB7813 · 20 Aug 2008 at 23:16

I had never really touched any CSS, but just looked for some tutorials and followed one that takes you through how to make a WP theme, then decided I would just take a pre-made theme and modify it, found it to be VERY frustrating at times, but make a separate copy of your blog and start playing around, firebug addon for FF is essential IMO! Although there's no real manual for it, and it wasn't fully intuitive to me, it's a really handy little plugin. Also make sure you test your site in IE and FF, because sometimes it renders totally different = more work :mad:

Another couple of sites I read that can sometimes be interesting are these two:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/
http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/

Russinating · 20 Aug 2008 at 23:50

Hi there. Good idea and nice start, and it's good your asking for advice elsewhere as well!

I'm no expert (I think I say that in every post in this forum section) but I'd like to think that I could suggest a few things to help! I'll try and make them as brief as possible, but if you want any further help on anything just shout.

#1 - Who's your target audience? This can affect a lot of decisions and I think it's pretty important to get this straight as soon as possible. Without much research or knowledge about piers I'd expect it's families and the older generation - so in general you're going to be targeting 35-60's? Like I said, no research here!

#2 - The first thing I noticed when I came to your site is it's width - it's pretty wide! Based on your target audience, it's a fair bet to assume that most of these won't have decent computers, or may even just use a public computer. And with this usually comes a lower res - now I haven't checked but it doesn't look like your site will fit widthways into a 1024x768 res which will make navigation harder, especially seeing as your links are on the right (they'd be the ones that are cut off). You could shrink the site, or swap the Pages column with the Posts column. I'd do both.

#3 - Once you've got your target audience you want to think about your keywords - probably something like piers, english, tourism, family, sea side, etc. The only one of those I can see from a glance is pier which I imagine is fairly competitive.

#4 - Shrink your header, it's massive! I run at 1440x900 and the content only starts halfway down the screen. Get rid of the Google search as well (seeing as it's not even site specific).

#5 - You need to change the buttons, like someones mentioned they're too small for the text let alone if the text size is increased. The region categories is a good idea.

#6 - I don't know why, but I feel like there's too much text. I get the feeling your hosting-money could come from piers themselves and not insite adverts, but that's something to worry about once your site ranks higher than or just after "blackpool pier" than their own website

.

#7 - Needs an introduction and welcome page. At the moment it feels more like a blog than a commercial website.

That's all that came to my mind when I first visited. If any of that is helpful and you'd like any more advice on those or anything else just give me a shout

.

wonder_lander · 21 Aug 2008 at 08:29

rghjones said:
Hi there. Good idea and nice start, and it's good your asking for advice elsewhere as well!

I'm no expert (I think I say that in every post in this forum section) but I'd like to think that I could suggest a few things to help! I'll try and make them as brief as possible, but if you want any further help on anything just shout.

#1 - Who's your target audience? This can affect a lot of decisions and I think it's pretty important to get this straight as soon as possible. Without much research or knowledge about piers I'd expect it's families and the older generation - so in general you're going to be targeting 35-60's? Like I said, no research here!

There is a mixture of audiences I suppose depending on the pier. It could be the older market but there would also be stag/hen parties and people wanting alternative weddings!

#2 - The first thing I noticed when I came to your site is it's width - it's pretty wide! Based on your target audience, it's a fair bet to assume that most of these won't have decent computers, or may even just use a public computer. And with this usually comes a lower res - now I haven't checked but it doesn't look like your site will fit widthways into a 1024x768 res which will make navigation harder, especially seeing as your links are on the right (they'd be the ones that are cut off). You could shrink the site, or swap the Pages column with the Posts column. I'd do both.

Fit's no problem on the width of 1024 but thanks for the feedback as I hadn't actually checked!

#3 - Once you've got your target audience you want to think about your keywords - probably something like piers, english, tourism, family, sea side, etc. The only one of those I can see from a glance is pier which I imagine is fairly competitive.

Noted, will investigate this further!

#4 - Shrink your header, it's massive! I run at 1440x900 and the content only starts halfway down the screen. Get rid of the Google search as well (seeing as it's not even site specific).

#5 - You need to change the buttons, like someones mentioned they're too small for the text let alone if the text size is increased. The region categories is a good idea.

Looks like this thread is telling me to get a new wordpress template. Am I best off commisioning one or trying to find a better free one?

#6 - I don't know why, but I feel like there's too much text. I get the feeling your hosting-money could come from piers themselves and not insite adverts, but that's something to worry about once your site ranks higher than or just after "blackpool pier" than their own website

.

#7 - Needs an introduction and welcome page. At the moment it feels more like a blog than a commercial website.

I agree completely with this! Just have to write one!

That's all that came to my mind when I first visited. If any of that is helpful and you'd like any more advice on those or anything else just give me a shout .

Thanks for taking the time to review and feedback, it really helps.

wonder_lander · 26 Aug 2008 at 09:18

Looks like I'm going to need to get somebody to do the changes on the wordpress template as I have no idea on what to do!

Should I use a service like getafreelancer.com is that the best kind of place?

wonder_lander · 26 Aug 2008 at 22:25

rghjones said:
#7 - Needs an introduction and welcome page. At the moment it feels more like a blog than a commercial website.

How does this read?

Welcome to the-pier.co.uk

The aim of the-pier.co.uk is to document and provide a wealth of resources with regards to the past and present piers around the UK. Whether it be the bright lights of Brighton and Blackpool or the more simple jetty constructions like at Southend the-pier.co.uk has information on these great institutions of British Seaside history.

We have news, articles, website links, opening times, weather as well as webcams for many of the piers around the UK. We are constantly looking to add new piers and content to the website so be sure to check back regularly for updates.

To receive automatic updates about the website please consider subscribing to the websites RSS feed at <a href="www.the-pier.co.uk/feed">www.the-pier.co.uk/feed</a>

All feedback and comments are welcome so please feel free to comment on articles or feedback using the contact forms.

Rich43 · 27 Aug 2008 at 02:22

Dont really like the buttons, they are quite tacky.

fini · 27 Aug 2008 at 02:50

What I always suggest with wordpress is to first check you have the basics covered. For me that is a number of plugins that dramatically increase general SEO for the site.

At a minimum you should have installed:
Google XML Sitemaps
HeadSpace2
Increase Sociability
PagerFix
Robots Meta
RSSupplement
SEO Friendly Images
SEO Slugs
Sociable
Subscribe To Comments
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

The super cache plugin is always a good idea, but obviously doesn't really help at all with SEO.

Your RSS feeds are way way to difficult to find.

On single post pages consider removing the sidebars - they're just making the crawlers take more convoluted routes around the site and thus they'll crawl it less.

I don't know what you've done to the normal search functionality, but you've broken it. A search for 'eastbourne', for example, shows no results...

Consider changing your permalink structure to include category so that you get some keywords into the url.

I'm sure that's enough to be getting on with...

wonder_lander · 27 Aug 2008 at 08:24

Rich43 said:
Dont really like the buttons, they are quite tacky.

Thanks for the feedback and as exxplained I am looking to remove the buttons for some easier and cleaner layout

wonder_lander · 27 Aug 2008 at 08:28

fini said:
What I always suggest with wordpress is to first check you have the basics covered. For me that is a number of plugins that dramatically increase general SEO for the site.

At a minimum you should have installed:
Google XML Sitemaps
HeadSpace2
Increase Sociability
PagerFix
Robots Meta
RSSupplement
SEO Friendly Images
SEO Slugs
Sociable
Subscribe To Comments
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

The super cache plugin is always a good idea, but obviously doesn't really help at all with SEO.

Will look into each of those, thanks.

Your RSS feeds are way way to difficult to find.

Agreed

On single post pages consider removing the sidebars - they're just making the crawlers take more convoluted routes around the site and thus they'll crawl it less.

Can you give me an example on this so that I can look at how to address it?

I don't know what you've done to the normal search functionality, but you've broken it. A search for 'eastbourne', for example, shows no results...

Hmm....will investigate!

Consider changing your permalink structure to include category so that you get some keywords into the url.

Will look to add that, thanks

I'm sure that's enough to be getting on with...

Indeedy!

fini · 27 Aug 2008 at 09:45

wonder_lander said:
Can you give me an example on this so that I can look at how to address it?

Few blogs do it, but if you think from a crawlers point of view it makes a ton of sense. In the page.php file literally delete reference to the two sidebars (or at the very least link to modified sidebars where all the links are no-followed). If you delete them this has the added advantage of giving extra space for the one post showing.

wonder_lander · 27 Aug 2008 at 20:30

Have added some of the suggested plugins but now need a wordpress guru to help me with navigation and sorting my rss images and placement out! Any offers?

fini · 27 Aug 2008 at 22:03

What specifically are you wanting to do?

wonder_lander · 28 Aug 2008 at 08:07

fini said:
What specifically are you wanting to do?

I need to clean up the navigation as I have 10 new pier articles in progress which should be completed for next week. Probably want some way of splitting it down by region I guess.

I also need to know how to get the RSS feed button orange and up nearer to the top of the page.

Lastly I need to sack off or fix the search!