please review my Italian guy

[Dreamshop]

This site was nonexistent on Google and had a frames setup when I first started working on it.

I'm not the designer, but since he didn't get the concept of optimization I ended up redoing certain things myself...like adding the CSS nav bar.

The site is www.pastabiz.com, and the primary keywords are: pasta machine / pasta machines.

We're still pretty much nonexistant for these keywords, but since I've made changes to the nav bar, page titles, and text, I was able to get him into approximately 70 #1-5 spots for 50 secondary targeted keywords.

Some of the secondary keywords that we're doing well with are...

catering pasta machine
commercial ravioli maker
pasta equipment
restaurant pasta machine
restaurant pasta maker
restaurant pasta equipment


I'm diligently working on adding a 'resource' links page so we can trade links, as well as a 'tips & advice' section to help add new content.

Anyone have any thoughts on why we're doing so well for so many related keywords, yet not for our primary?

[Dreamshop]

anyone? anyone?

[Dreamshop]

Yo!

Well I didn't get any advice [boo hoo], but I've finally got this site ranking for our primary keyword on Google! It's not in the best spot but it's moving up slowly. Persistance pays off I guess.

Thanks for the help lovely people. :p

[jocelyn]

I rarely do sites review...

Your title has the company name in it... not helping.
Removing the company name makes it an exact match to pasta machine.
Now this will help or make no difference, maybe add some good words like 'for home'... to see. An exact match is not always good, you have to try to see.
Obviously, with PR3, you will have a hard time getting to 1st page for competitive stuff... you need to get more links buddy.
Maybe you have a bit too much of the word pasta on your page... if you have too much, it may fireback.

Well thats what I would try anyway... Hope it gives you ideas...

[dilligaf]

[QUOTE=jocelyn]
Maybe you have a bit too much of the word pasta on your page...[/QUOTE]
Agreed, that's alot of pasta!
You link back home to index.html instead of the domain.
Missing page title here: /food_service_equipment.html
On most pages your opening text/closing text doesn't include page title ex: //restaurant_equipment.html doesn't have Restaurant at the beginning or end of the page.

Joc's on it with the links.

[melaniejk]

I agree you need more backlinks to compete for those terms.

But, when you get those backlinks remember to get the anchor text to be:
pasta machine or pasta machines. This will really help.

[Dreamshop]

Thanks peeps.

Most of this stuff I get, I only have a few hours a month to work on this site so doing changes is slow going. And I've had to completely overhaul the navigation [still a little buggy].

I'm not worried about the secondary pages at all...to be honest I've gotten great rankings for this site. Probably more than 100 #1 spots on Google for related keywords. We'd just like to see it get a top five spot for those two primary words 'pasta machine' and 'pasta machines'.

We rank #1 for 'Food Service Pasta' which has over 1mil competing links. I guess noone else was optimizing for that. ;)

It's getting there though. I've been working on link building over the last couple months and we're finally moving up. Today we're at #33 for pasta machine. We didn't rank ANYWHERE for that phrase up until three weeks ago. I've also tried a lot of different combos for home page text and title tags. This latest version is where we actually got listed. I'm going to give it few more weeks to see if we move up anymore.

Finally something, ya.
Cheers!

[Dreamshop]

So I made a few changes...

I added a sitemap page to the the top nav, and put a link back to the home page using keywords at the bottom of the page [using the full domain].

I also started a new links page which I was able to optimize for our target market. I found the term "Restaurant Managers Resources" was be used fairly regularly so I gave it that title. I previously had trouble getting the site owner to let me create a Sitemap and Links page, but I finally managed to talk him into it. I'm also updating a few key pages with our targted phrase.

I think this is gonna be good dammit! :useforce:


Thanks y'all!