longsummer
05-02-2004, 07:39 AM
Hi all,
Thanks for putting all this incredibly helpful information together on the seo-guy site and opening it up to the newbie amateur community like this, rather than treating this information like some state secret.
I started putting together a small website for my Mother's B&B site last month. Born on 4th April 2004 to be precise. It's my first attempt at a website and I know that it really fails all sorts of tests, but I figured that I can only improve by trying.
So, the site is http://www.bestcotswold.com
On 3rd April I knew NOTHING, so I hope that you will forgive the more obvious inadequacies (I even used FrontPage, not realising that that really lacked credibility...) and I am still in early stage newbie-ness. Clearly. So, if you can, be gentle!
Anyway - having put the basic website skeleton together I also experimented with some keyword analysis and after a couple of weeks of playing around with Google AdWords, Overture and e-spotting I have come to the preliminary conclusion (from keyword use frequencies, impressions, clickthrough rates and costs) that the most important keywords for the site are:
Cotswolds B&B
Cotswolds accommodation
Cotswolds bed and breakfast
I have refined an initial list of about 100 terms down to about 40 that I am now running through Google AdWords and 20 (mostly overlapping) through Overture and e-spotting. I jiggle around with them every day.
I have also now re-written the copy of the indexpage and the "Accommodation" page so that they can focus on different keyword combinations and then tried to increase the keyword density of these pages for Cotswolds B&B and Cotswolds accommodation respectively.
I have also come back and used some tools from www.related-pages.com (http://www.related-pages.com/seoSearchEngine.aspx) and made changes to try to incorporate keywords in page title, meta description and meta keywords and addded relevant Alt tags to images.
I have also surveyed the souce code for the sites that are currently most highly ranked in the search engines and then tried to emulate some of their use of keywords and content so that we may at least hope to play in the same league even if not leapfrog them!
And so here are my specific questions/worries :
1) I have tried every combination of Cotswold B&B, varied capitalisation and spacing and played around with the ampersand (&) and all sorts, but for the LIFE of me I can not get any keyword density recognised on the indexpage, not in the first 250 characters, not even in the first 1000 characters and yet it's there staring me in the face - FRUSTRATION! What am I doing wrong?
2) This brings up the wider question of using "B&B" as keyword or part of a keyword phrase. We're stuck with it...it's how customers think about this sector and it's what they search for, but just judging by some differences between Google AdWords, Overture and e-spotting, it's obviously a problem - particularly because of the ampersand. Any suggestions for approaches to making the best of this would be very helpful.
3) I think I am really losing the plot when it comes to Href tags. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it's not enough, clearly.
4) I have NOT begun the process of finding/encouraging backlinks yet. (My theory was to try to make the site presentable and then keyword-friendly before embarking on the main thrust of obtaining links.) In this sector, however, there are a number of good specialist listing sites that we can obtain inclusion within, either on for a small inclusion fee, or on a reciprocal linkage basis. The sector will always, I believe, divide between the accommodation 'listings' sites (who have marketing budgets, time and expertise for SEO etc) and the actual 'location' sites (like this one). My objective is to get listed in the better 'listings' sites of course, but ALSO to rank really well amongst the 'location' sites and I wonder if there will be much value to pursuing backlinkage with sites outside the 'sector'? If so, of what type?
Other thoughts:
- It is my Mother's B&B so we're never going to be truly commercial
- However I AM impressed so far with the power of the web....from a standing start less than a month ago we are now receiving 70-100 distinct vistiors per diem
- More importantly, having previously received about 2 nights bookings per week, we have now received bookings for 85 nights from internet-based enquirers in a month
- I would now, of course, like to supplement and to an extent replace, paid-for CPC programme based enquirers with SEO-developed enquirers
Any help or insights would be welcome. I am using this whole experience as a proxy of course - hoping to gain general education from the process, so don't be bashful about telling me stuff that may be absolutely OBVIOUS to you guys. It'll be new to me.
Sorry to write at such length - I thought it best to explain as much as possible. If you reached here and you're still reading: THANKS :)
Longsummer (aka Adrian !)
Thanks for putting all this incredibly helpful information together on the seo-guy site and opening it up to the newbie amateur community like this, rather than treating this information like some state secret.
I started putting together a small website for my Mother's B&B site last month. Born on 4th April 2004 to be precise. It's my first attempt at a website and I know that it really fails all sorts of tests, but I figured that I can only improve by trying.
So, the site is http://www.bestcotswold.com
On 3rd April I knew NOTHING, so I hope that you will forgive the more obvious inadequacies (I even used FrontPage, not realising that that really lacked credibility...) and I am still in early stage newbie-ness. Clearly. So, if you can, be gentle!
Anyway - having put the basic website skeleton together I also experimented with some keyword analysis and after a couple of weeks of playing around with Google AdWords, Overture and e-spotting I have come to the preliminary conclusion (from keyword use frequencies, impressions, clickthrough rates and costs) that the most important keywords for the site are:
Cotswolds B&B
Cotswolds accommodation
Cotswolds bed and breakfast
I have refined an initial list of about 100 terms down to about 40 that I am now running through Google AdWords and 20 (mostly overlapping) through Overture and e-spotting. I jiggle around with them every day.
I have also now re-written the copy of the indexpage and the "Accommodation" page so that they can focus on different keyword combinations and then tried to increase the keyword density of these pages for Cotswolds B&B and Cotswolds accommodation respectively.
I have also come back and used some tools from www.related-pages.com (http://www.related-pages.com/seoSearchEngine.aspx) and made changes to try to incorporate keywords in page title, meta description and meta keywords and addded relevant Alt tags to images.
I have also surveyed the souce code for the sites that are currently most highly ranked in the search engines and then tried to emulate some of their use of keywords and content so that we may at least hope to play in the same league even if not leapfrog them!
And so here are my specific questions/worries :
1) I have tried every combination of Cotswold B&B, varied capitalisation and spacing and played around with the ampersand (&) and all sorts, but for the LIFE of me I can not get any keyword density recognised on the indexpage, not in the first 250 characters, not even in the first 1000 characters and yet it's there staring me in the face - FRUSTRATION! What am I doing wrong?
2) This brings up the wider question of using "B&B" as keyword or part of a keyword phrase. We're stuck with it...it's how customers think about this sector and it's what they search for, but just judging by some differences between Google AdWords, Overture and e-spotting, it's obviously a problem - particularly because of the ampersand. Any suggestions for approaches to making the best of this would be very helpful.
3) I think I am really losing the plot when it comes to Href tags. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it's not enough, clearly.
4) I have NOT begun the process of finding/encouraging backlinks yet. (My theory was to try to make the site presentable and then keyword-friendly before embarking on the main thrust of obtaining links.) In this sector, however, there are a number of good specialist listing sites that we can obtain inclusion within, either on for a small inclusion fee, or on a reciprocal linkage basis. The sector will always, I believe, divide between the accommodation 'listings' sites (who have marketing budgets, time and expertise for SEO etc) and the actual 'location' sites (like this one). My objective is to get listed in the better 'listings' sites of course, but ALSO to rank really well amongst the 'location' sites and I wonder if there will be much value to pursuing backlinkage with sites outside the 'sector'? If so, of what type?
Other thoughts:
- It is my Mother's B&B so we're never going to be truly commercial
- However I AM impressed so far with the power of the web....from a standing start less than a month ago we are now receiving 70-100 distinct vistiors per diem
- More importantly, having previously received about 2 nights bookings per week, we have now received bookings for 85 nights from internet-based enquirers in a month
- I would now, of course, like to supplement and to an extent replace, paid-for CPC programme based enquirers with SEO-developed enquirers
Any help or insights would be welcome. I am using this whole experience as a proxy of course - hoping to gain general education from the process, so don't be bashful about telling me stuff that may be absolutely OBVIOUS to you guys. It'll be new to me.
Sorry to write at such length - I thought it best to explain as much as possible. If you reached here and you're still reading: THANKS :)
Longsummer (aka Adrian !)