Feedback needed

[kazzuk]

Hi Everyone

This is my very first posting here. I have just launched my business and new website. www.Basketsgiftsandbeyond.com

I have read lots of postings and advice here and wondered if you could take a look at my site and give me any feedback. How long does it take for Google to start listing a site? I have been paying for ppc advertising over the Christmas, but had to drop out when the word gift basket got to well over $2.00 a click. I am now using overture (around listing no. 20) and ah-ha for advertising)

I would really appreciate any advice any of you could give me on the site and SEO.
P.S. I know it still says Christmas Baskets available on the main page. My web designer should have updated this before he left for his Christmas holidays - but didn't - I am on the case!

[cbp]

Couple of quick points:

1. You are listed in google
2. Gift baskets is a very competitive industry online and the sector is rife with spam doing well on Google.

Have a read of this New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/20/technology/circuits/20goog.html?ex=1073366154&ei=1&en=00f311bd43d182fb).

CBP

[sonnie]

kazzuk,

Nice looking site. Your site as mentioned by cbp is listed by Google and may very well be by others. But, your position rankings may be low due to many factors.

Here are a few of my impressions:

Wow! A whole bunch of META keywords and phrases. Some of which I don't understand. Remember, page content is important (headers, text, basically add-copy) and your keywords and I think more importantly, keyword phrases should be found within your content. I do not want to repeat posts in various threads but you can read a post by me that might be relevant here: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=10576

[kazzuk]

Thank you so much for your feedback. The article in the NY Times was very interesting. I am listed in Google but not in a place that will get me noticed - not yet anyway. All of my online sales comes from ppc advertising, which is very costly. Any other tips?

[ronniethedodger]

Very nice looking site.

It appears that you were just recently indexed by Google. They are not done with running you through their wringer yet. According to what I am showing, they have not given you a PR yet. Be patient.

You may want to start working on getting your self some links with other sites. This will help in raising the PR at Google. But it will also help in rankings at other search engines also.

Other search engines usually call for some type of paid placement or submission. Yep, I know, more money. But paid submissions are good bang for the buck sometimes.

I remember reading the article that cbp supplied the link for a while back when the whole Google fiasco started. You may have to resign yourself to the fact that your chosen area is very competitive. And as such, you may have to spend a little more to promote it. PPC being just one of the alternatives.

If your site is now starting to produce, or appears to be starting...you may want to get going on another site. Keep building, never stop moving and wait to see what happens. Keep on, keeping on.

[kazzuk]

Is there a way that I can check the same way you have checked to see if we have been spidered by Google? I have been approached by several companies claiming that they can guarantee 1st page listing on our selected key word - gift baskets. The prices range from .37 to .20 per click. Any thoughts?

[ronniethedodger]

The way to check for your pages at Google is to do an ALLINURL: search there. So for your site you would do ALLINURL:www.basketsgiftsandbeyond.com .

Similarly to do back link checking you would use the LINK: search. ( LINK:www.Basketsgiftsandbeyond.com )

And how where you approached. Email?

I am no expert on that end of it, but there are some around here who deal with that part of it. Best to leave that question to them.

Not all members here at WPW visit all of the forums. They tend to stick to the areas they know or interest them. If you look in the Forum Index, I think there is an area for Web Site Promotion and another one for Google AdSense. There are a couple of others too that apply to your question. You may want to post it there. Doing so will get you some more answers.

In the meantime there is a member who put together this little e-book on some really basic principals. It is pretty straightforward and will answer some more of your questions.

http://www.seobook.com/seobook.htm

[greeneagle]

kazzuk,
You have one of the nicer looking, more appealing "Gift Basket" Sites out there.
Did you know that Walmart-Gift Basket Site does not come up until #100?

I checked your keyword density for the phrase "gift baskets" and here is what I found:

meta title = 44.44%
meta description = 37.5%
meta keywords = 13.33%
visible text = 4.34%

The visible text is ok - The other 3 are too high which may mean you got the old Spam heave-ho. Check with others in the forums that are offering free SEO help first, but I think modifying a few metatags might help.

Ken

[Perry]

Karen,

That is one nice-looking site.

Basically the only way is to put in plenty of constant fresh keywords. And even if you were able to get yourself on the first few pages of the search, you may lose that ranking if you don't throw in fresh keywords now and then. It's a constant thing you may have to do. It can be a bit of a hassle.

With that in mind, perhaps you could do outside advertising: Magazines, newspapers, Reader's Digest, business cards, magnetic car sign, T-Shirts...

Also, brainstorm for ideas on what kind of sites would have the highest ranking in the search engines and the most visited, and advertise your baskets with them.

Askmen.com is such a site. There are a lot of women who go there also, so don't let their name throw you off. They have a lot of daily visitors, but the drawback is their arrogance in their advertising rates. They want upfront money of between $500-750. The last time I checked, it was for 1,000,000 impressions. It's worth a shot.

[Mel]

Hi Karen
You have a very nice site in a very competitive business, but you are getting started in the right way.

Google is showing a PR of 4 for your home page, but is reporting only 3 backlinks ( but Google only reports links from pages with a PR of 4 or higher) and other search engines are reporting even fewer so you should work on getting more back links from reputable sites starting with DMOZ and other directories such as Joeant, Gimpsy, etc.

You should do some basic keyword research at wordtracker to determine which search terms are being used to find sites such as yours and then use these terms in your links to other areas of your site, etc. This is an important basic step which I recommend that every webmaster do even before starting thier site as it saves a lot of work making changes later. As an example the term gift baskets is searched on nine times more than gift basket, and the term holiday gift baskets is 50% more popular then christmas gift baskets, and so on. This is basic to getting traffic from your rankings.

Once you have a list of the keywords most relevant to your site, start soliciting links to your site, and make sure you use the appropriate keywords in the anchor text of your links.

Review your page titles, meta description and meta keywords tags to insure that you are only using keywords appropriate to that page, and especially get rid of the long list of keywords in your keywords tag - limit it to tow or three phrases appropriate to that page. You can use the other keywords on other pages but no one page is going to rank well for thirty different phrases.

I would not worry to much about the density of keywords in the head section, Just remember that the page title should be written with the reader in mind as it is going to be the description that the searcher is going to use to decide whether to click thru to your site or not.
Limit your self to targeting at the most three related keyphrases per page. Remember that any page title longer than about 60 charaters is going to be trucated by Google and other SEs, and put your most important keyphrases at the beginning of the title. Leave your site name out of the title, no one is going to be searching for you by your site name.

With respect to one page optimization, you should add keyword alt tags to all your graphics, and try to work in some H tags, bolded text, italic text and a list if possible.

You could really use more text on your pages in order to rank better, I would suggest about 300 words minimum but don't hesitate to go up to 500 words or so if you have the information to justify it.

I would suggest that you consider your page from the viewpoint of the searcher and potential buyer; now that he has made it to your page why should he buy from you? Yor still need to sell even though you have a very attractive site.

This will get you started, but you have lots of competitors.

[minstrel]

Actually, Mel, using +"www.Basketsgiftsandbeyond.com" as the search term, Google shows 151 back links, including Yahoo.

Some of the other suggestions may help but as cbp noted, this is a VERY competitive category - you're trying to get to the top of probably thousands of websites and tinkering with keywords and such isn't likely to make a huge difference. I don't know where you rank now or what your best keyphrases are currently, Karen - you can check that out manually quite easily with a bit of imagination and some snooping at what the top ranked sites are doing - but maybe this is one of those categories where to really do well you need some sort of paid advertising... either that or a unique niche you can target.

You might also think about using regional targeting in your keyword phrases and content - e.g., New York gift baskets, or whatever. That at least narrows down the field a bit and it may be what potential clients will do when they see a huge list of sites come up in the search engine listing.

[kazzuk]

Thank you everyone,

You have all been really helpful. I feel so much more optimistic about the site now. I will implement some changes and I plan to run a linking campaign targeting page rank 5 sites and higher.

What is a good amount of incoming links to have?

Thanks again.

Karen