SEO Advice

[Jochem8]

Hello guys,

I'm not an SEO by profession or anything'. I'm a student helping the owner of a language school with his website. It was all written with FrontPage so the HTML code was very very poor.

I have completely redesigned the page but am still not getting many visitors from Google (or any search engine), and certainly not many subscriptions from new students.

I think the HTML code is okay right now (isn't it?).

What more can I do to get higher ranking in (for instance) Google?

I have got quite some links back to my website (or maybe not enough?), am active on language forums and many other unrelated forums with the URL in my signature.

In other words: HELP!!! :)

http://www.spanishcoursesandcultureinspain.com

[KeithO]

onsite optimization seems good. i am just not sure if you are targeting high traffic words.

[JuniorOnline]

give me an example of a keyword your trying to target and show me the page your not showing in the engines.

[RegDCP]

Perhaps the search engines think you are spamming them.
You have the word spanish 41 times in your page and 22 times in your keyword meta tag.

I would cut this down to 3 or 4 times in your page and once in your meta tags.

I would think that a good target would be just "Learn Spanish"

Reg

[MeanSEO]

1) Lower the spam count.

2) Research Keywords with a tool such as wordtracker

3)The page has more than 60 valiadation warnings.

4)The code is bloated

[davebarnes]

This
http://www.webconfs.com/search-engin...-simulator.php

and this
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php

might help you.

Please be sure to donate some money if they do.

,dave

[scanmonkey]

good keyword source and addictive too

http://www.nichebot.com

[Jochem8]

Originally Posted by suesheboy

1) Lower the spam count.

2) Research Keywords with a tool such as wordtracker

3)The page has more than 60 valiadation warnings.

4)The code is bloated

1) Okay, less keywords in the text. Going to work on that.

2) Cool tracker. How about I use "Spanish courses malaga, Malaga, spanish language, learn Spanish" for key words?

3) Where do you see those warnings? If I just enter the page it loads without a problem.

4) What do you mean by bloated? Is there too much code in the website?

Originally Posted by davebarnes

This
http://www.webconfs.com/search-engin...-simulator.php

and this
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php

might help you.

Please be sure to donate some money if they do.

,dave

Hi Dave,

I use WebPosition for that, but thanks anyway.

[MeanSEO]

Don't try to target too many keywords on one page.

One hot phrase per targeted page is great and it doesnt have to be on the index page.

Find the keywords with the highest KEI and work on them first (low hanging fruit).

Run your page through a HTML validator. It loads but you have issues including missing alt tags whioch can help your SEO.

Less code and more CSS (in an external file) for example.

[frogmanandy]

you can validate your pages here http://validator.w3.org/

Aloha
www.maui-vacation.net
www.mauihawaiiluau.com
www.hawaiidiscountactivities.com

[davidredwine]

You h1 tagged things that are not in your keywords listed. for instance you h1 tagged the words "Special Offer"........this misuse of h1 tags is costing you dearly......use h1 tags to reinforce your keywords. You should use your keywords in headings of paragraphs, and sprinkle your keywords liberally into those headings, and then also include those keywords in the paragraph that follows the heading.

YOU ARE OPTIMIZING FOR THE WRONG AUDIENCE. What you offer is called "immersion spanish". enter that phrase into google, then examine the code of your competitors.

Your content is heavily weighted towards food, beaches, hotels and accommodations. You should provide a little less of that, and more information on why immersion works, and how you compare to other immersion spanish offerings/methods.

Try to change h1 tagged phrases like the one below (weighted towards "lovely, enjoy, Malaga's, beaches")

"Enjoy Malaga's lovely beaches while you do your Spanish course with Babel Idiomas"

To a phrase that will get you better ranking, more , yet not sound too odd to your visitors......Maybe something like...

Spanish immersion courses from Babel Idomas combine Spanish language lessons with beautiful Spanish beaches, food, fun, history and more.

Try doing this as often as possible in your text.
.
.
.
Your Title, Description, and Conent tags need to be cohesive.

Closer to

Title - "Spanish Immersion Language Studies, Malaga, Spain"
Description - " Spanish Immersion Language Studies in beautiful coastal village of Malaga, Spain"

Keywords: "Spanish Immersion, Spanish language immersion, immersive spanish, lessons, Spain, beaches, hotel, host family, apartments, Malaga Spain, coastal Spain"


I would use wordtracker to decide which keywords were best for me. The strategy above just shows you how to maintain continuity across the title/description/keyword tags.

You need to re-think the order of the words on your pages to push the KEYWORDS up in importance in the sentences. Instead of describing the surrounding area, try to make more use of external links (other peoples web sites) to places of interest, accomodations, etc. Then try to beef up references in your subpages to more about the learning of spanish, why immersion works, what types of language skills, and methods you use at your school, why they work, etc.

The search engines are probably placing your web site closer to being a hotelier/tour guide because of the way you have promoted hotels, accomodation, transporation, beaches, nightspots, etc (basically everything else on your site is talked about more, and is promoted higher via the number of words and sentences than "Immersion Spanish, learning spanish, Spanish lessons". You sub pages have that same problem. you need more subpages with Spanish language related material. Immersion Spanish has been used by kings, queens, movie stars. Spanish lessons from our company have been provided for clients all over the world. These students know the value of immersive spanish lessons,.........etc,.....etc.......etc. Look around, surely you'll find more content.

springle more keyword references to Spanish lessons, Spanish courses, Immersion spanish,etc. on your existing subpages for starters.

AND be careful how you use those H1 TAGS!!!!!!!......if you use one improperly to promote "Special Offers" (which you have done) instead of "Spanish Lessons" you could be showing up in "Free coupon" searches more than you do for "Spanish lessons"

[gedanate]

You have 45 pages indexed in Yahoo and 55 in Google. And I think its 46 in MSN. (None of the other engines are worth counting for international traffic.) You also have a large number of incoming links: (Yahoo = 302, MSN = 1131 and Google = zero).

You are not getting much traffic, so you should check out your competitors websites and see how they compare to yours. Try and see what they are "doing right" and what you can do to improve.

Your pages are full of too many keywords in the meta tags. This is called "keyword stuffing" and is considered spamming by Google at least.

You need to select just one primary key-phrase (keyword) for each page, one secondary keyword, and about two or three "other keywords" which are sprinkled naturally in the text of your pages.

You also need to choose a primary keyword/phrase for your whole site. e.g "Learn to speak Spanish" or "Spanish Language Instruction". You can only make this decision after researching carefully on WordTracker.com. You have to understand the supply and demand, and which keywords are achievable and which can be abandoned.

Why don't you write (or have ghost-written for you) several articles or press releases about your language school, the great history of Spain, its tourist attractions, where to stay, what to do etc.

(Maybe your government Tourism bureau could help you with this, for free. Or get them to pay you?!!)

Submit one or two articles each week to PRWeb.com and/or ezinearticles.com. The articles must include yuour name as an Expert on the subject, plus a URL (link) back to the website.

[Jochem8]

Hi David,

First of all: Wow, you spent some time analyzing the website. Thank you so much for that.

I am going to read it thoroughly and make the changes you mentioned. The new text will hopefully be ready tomorrow.

By the way, this is going to be the new design: http://www.spanishcoursesandculturei....com/temporal/

Best regards,

Jochem