SEO HELP for the Google Impaired...

pretick · #1 (**permalink**) 07-14-2004, 07:22 PM

Hello all.
I have been trying to get my site www.preferredticket.com ranke wihtin the first 2 SERPS on Google for almost 5 months and alas, nothing! I am indexed but no one can find me. So, I tried to see what my competitors are doing and copied them in a test exercise under the phrase "oscar de la hoya tickets" and have created a page which you can view here http://www.preferredticket.com/oscar...a_tickets.html

I have looked at all kinds of HTML validators and I seem to have less erros that my competitors listed in positions 1 - 7. I have also noticed since I submitted this exact page to Google (last thursday) that 4 sites have appeared and then dis-appeared from Google under the same phrase used above.

Can anyone, shed some infinite wisdom on me? I am a lost sheep out here and fear my job my be in jeopardy if I can not figure this out. I am a marketing guy and have purchased every book and read as many posts as I can on WPW. But I am good at promotions and building brand. PPC marketing and overall online campaign buys.

PLEASE HELP ME (if you are so inclined)

For all who take the time to give me an honest and useful critique and can point me in the right direction, I will give everyone a $25 Gift certificate. just email me at shannon@preferredticket.com and provide your mailing address and i will mail out a gift certificate to you ASAP.

Thanks for your time and help.

Regards,

-Shannon

achronister · #2 (**permalink**) 07-14-2004, 07:43 PM

pretick,

Competition is fierce for your terms....I'm in the same industry. A large budget will help ;)

I'll give you a couple pointers even though we're competitors....it's all about links in this business. The page you created won't really do anything in google. They concentrate on inbound link anchor text and much less for on-page factors. Get more links with relevant anchor text (and I mean a lot). That's a start.

pretick · #3 (**permalink**) 07-14-2004, 08:02 PM

Achronister,
Thanks for the 411, I am a paretner of yours as well check out click4tickets.com Jake and Dave are great peeps. I am a bit confused however with the linking, do you mean I need to go out and find people who will link to me in regards to this page? If so then why are our competitors who have as many or less links and no PR listed in the #1 - 6 spots under the term "oscar de la hoya tickets"? This was out first stab at this before we made the c4t.com webiste (our joint with you at TS) a full blown product please advise.

Regards,

-Shannon

vizilla · #4 (**permalink**) 07-14-2004, 10:22 PM

Pretick/Shannon,

It's not just the number of links, but also the text in the links. If the anchor text in the hyperlink reads "Boxing Tickets", it won't do as much as good as "Oscar De La Hoya Tickets" or something that is a closer match to the precise keyword.

achronister · #5 (**permalink**) 07-15-2004, 11:20 AM

Internal links count as well. More pages on the site means more inbound links with "oscar de...tickets". Google's link command is fairly irrelevant. It doesn't often show the correct sample.

I would prioritize what you would want to rank well on and go find inbound links with that term, then go down the list.

Glad to have you on board!

SoftStrat · #6 (**permalink**) 07-15-2004, 08:14 PM

It really takes $$$ and high traffic to your web site to get the best positions. But having the highest ranking doesn't necessarily mean you will have high conversion to sales percentages. The key is to focus on your most successful campaigns (and keywords) so that you can adjust your bid prices against your competitors. Once you learn which campaigns are wasting your money, you can drop those keywords and and funnel that money into your more successful campaigns....if you want.

pretick · #7 (**permalink**) 07-15-2004, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoftStrat

It really takes $$$ and high traffic to your web site to get the best positions. But having the highest ranking doesn't necessarily mean you will have high conversion to sales percentages. The key is to focus on your most successful campaigns (and keywords) so that you can adjust your bid prices against your competitors. Once you learn which campaigns are wasting your money, you can drop those keywords and and funnel that money into your more successful campaigns....if you want.

I appreciate the info. I am currently spending in the 11.5 - 12.5% of total monthly revenue across the board in relation to my campaigns. The goal for me is to get that down to about 10% or less. The way to do this (I feel) is through better SEO. I sit here and scratch my head in bewilderment as I am having a hell of a time trying to figure out the Google 'sweet spot'. Figuring out how to please my girlfriend is easier than this! LOL. The strategies are in place, what is in question for me is what is wrong on the page I listed that is preventing Google from indexing me? I have over 1700 links into my domain www.preferredticket.com, the page in question is off that domain. If the first submission was last Thursday, am I just being impatient? Or, is there something I am missing?

achronister · #8 (**permalink**) 07-15-2004, 10:05 PM

Quote:

If the first submission was last Thursday, am I just being impatient? Or, is there something I am missing?

Submitting usually doesn't do much. I see that that page is linked from your home page, so google should pick it up fairly quickly. It depends on how often googlebot visits. (it comes to ours everyday, but we have a very large site and frequent updates of content, decent PR, etc) Check your logs and you should be able to tell when it will come around. As soon as it does, there should not be any problem getting it indexed.

As far as getting it ranked, you'll need some inbound links with the correct anchor text pointing to THAT page, not just your home page. You'll get PR benefit from all the links, but the rankings are based on individual pages, not the whole site.

theshoppingreviewman · #9 (**permalink**) 07-17-2004, 02:44 AM

Quote:

As far as getting it ranked, you'll need some inbound links with the correct anchor text pointing to THAT page, not just your home page. You'll get PR benefit from all the links, but the rankings are based on individual pages, not the whole site.

So each individual page needs to have backlinks for themselves, they will not get higher ranking in your opinion from being linked to from a very high ranking page?

Mel · #10 (**permalink**) 07-17-2004, 03:08 AM

Its the number of relevant anchor text links that are going to help your rankings, not the PR of the linking site. Each page is ranked independently,and the only contributions from other pages are inbound links of one kind or another.

pretick · #11 (**permalink**) 07-22-2004, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mel

Its the number of relevant anchor text links that are going to help your rankings, not the PR of the linking site. Each page is ranked independently,and the only contributions from other pages are inbound links of one kind or another.

OK, For someone who is NOT all that designer savvy, what is an 'Anchor Text' link? Do you mean if I have a term on a Lakers page "Laker Team History" and it is a hyper link to a page I have about the Lakers, I could then consider that 'anchor text'? Is there any other way 'anchor text' is used? Such as if I link to another site, or another site that is linking to me?

bhartzer · #12 (**permalink**) 07-22-2004, 07:56 PM

An anchor text link is any text link, really. The text that someone clicks on usually describes what the web page is about--so the search engines rely on the text that appears in links to help them determine what your web page is about.

To give you an example, in the previous post, the words 'Expert Ethical Economical Search Engine Optimization' is considered to be an anchor text link. The same with 'corporate website marketing' that appears in my signature below.

Anchor text links can appear anywhere, on your website or on someone else's website. As a website owner, you want anchor text links that include the keywords you're targeting to point to your page on that topic.