Getting indexed but no hits

[Research Bank]

Could end up being a long multi-question post, thanks for any help on any of the questions!

I have a website www.researchbank.co.uk (http://www.researchbank.co.uk) which I have tried to optimise as best as I can by looking through forums and learning bit by very small bit.

-I have submitted to major search engines
-I post regularly at various forums and blogs
-I have submitted to directories suggested here at WPW
-I am getting hits from all major search engine who seem to be getting through my site quite well

BUT I am not getting any significant hits...

What does this tell you...

1) my site is crap and no-one is interested in what I am trying to put across
2) or I have made a glaring ommission in my steps to internet glory?

Please could anyone shed some light and give advice on where to go next.

Many thanks

[tony s.]

Personally, I would start writing good articles on the subject of your website, and submit to directories. Have you identified any keyphrases you want to rank for? Are you moving forward in ranking for those phrases in the major engines?

[scanmonkey]

To increase your rankings you will need more relevant links with your keywords in the anchor text.

Research you keywords with a product like wordpress http://wordpress.org/

[etechdesigns]

To get more hits, just try to update your content regularly, prepare blog, submit articles, submit your site in directories & use proper keywords.

[crush123]

the keywords/phrases you have targeted are too competitive and it is difficult for your site to rank well for them.
because your site seems to have a low page rank of 1. so, build more links,
have more content on main page
your description meta tag is too short.

[JuniorOnline]

Hi Research Bank,

I really recommend using hover over effects on your links. at the moment, the menu feels dead to me and the top navigational bar too. people need to feel they are interacting with the site. at the moment the site feels very static and empty.

secondly, you need to include your page headings in <h1> tags. this is VERY VERY important. include in your headings the KEYWORDS your trying to target for each page. and make sure your meta tags title for that specific page, matches or very similar to your heading.

Good luck
T

[Research Bank]

Thanks all for your comments and advice... back to the drawing board to put them all in place bit by bit.

Thanks again.

[adbart]

Content content content!

[incrediblehelp]

Also understand your site is still fairly young and the websites you are competing with have been online for many years.

Have you considered operating a PPC campaign while you build organic traffic?

[cris33]

I'm new in my site also. I wish you the best of luck.

[Webnauts]

Maybe you should add your site in some web directories.
Check this: http://www.123promotion.co.uk/directorymanager/

But not too many at once or short timeframe.

[Webnauts]

Here is a huge list of
places to submit your
articles to.

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Sorry if any links are dublicated.

[spyrit]

wow..nice list man, i needed that too, thx :)

[internet-marketing-cr]

the keywords/phrases you have targeted are too competitive and it is difficult for your site to rank well for them.

I agree with crush123, you should look to rank for long tail keywords, less competitive keywords, more focused to start with.

Also as incrediblehelp mentioned, try to start a PPC campaign to build traffic to your site innitially.

[DomainDrivers]

Research Bank

We see your situation all the time here, as prospective clients. That is, they have a site up and running, but not the traffic that they expect. They are looking for solutions.

While our role is to earn reciprocal links (that's all we do, we are not the SEO advisors), we've seen enough of this to look at it objectively.

First, you have to step back and kind of start over. If I am making assumptions based on limited info, forgive me, I am just trying to describe what you should do if you were to attack this from an SEO perspective.

Most site owners start at the "I need an online brochure" perspective, then try to tack the SEO onto that site. It works, but it's backwards. For SEO, you need to be very structured.

1) Keyword research. Until you do this thoroughly, you are stabbing in the dark.

You need to define the scope of your target keywords as broadly as possible. Use a tool like http://www.wordtracker.com to help with this, but also, you need to brainstorm. What terms do you want to attract? What might people search for?

Think like a searcher, not like the site owner.

Compile ALL of the keywords that might apply. This is your "keyword scope"

2) You now need to prioritize it. Some terms have little traffic, but may be highly-related. Some may have huge traffic, but may already be very competitive, in terms of other sites already well-established for those terms.

Based on that traffic/relevance/competitive dynamic, determine your "priority level" for each term, in groups.

3) Here's where the rubber meets the road. You MUST develop optimized content on your site that addresses your priority list. Search engines cannot ever "figure out" what your site is about. YOU have to tell them, in the form of textual content, well optimized.

4) While this is taking place, you need links. Ways to get links are via reciprocation with other business product and services sites, article posts, mentions in business-related forums, etc.

You can "buy" links in the form of ads, but be careful these days. The best ads are ones that are custom-placed and do not appear to be "ads". And those can be expensive. Run-of-the-mill text ads may be of little value these days, depending on where you get them.

Reciprocation with business product and services sites serves the purpose of "branding" your site in as many places as possible. The links earned for your particular site may result in only modest direct traffic (hobbyist-related sites can get huge traffic from reciprocation), but it does have the effect of establishing your link popularity numbers in the engines. Think of it as foundation work, and do it continuously.

The best thing to do (but it takes much longer) is to become an "expert" in your field. Find out where people congregate on the web to discuss issues related to your business, and become a reliable source of good information. Be liberal with your links, as appropriate.

Doing both of these will eventually result in a "link critical mass", whereby you begin to generate gratuitous, unsolicited links coming from other sites, as they find you and cite your content. In order to get these gratuitous, unsolicited links, you have to get the ball rolling. That's why you reciprocate and get active in discussing your expertise.

Note this: People will not find and cite your content just because it is "there". That is a fallacy that is regularly believed on these forums. If you build it, they may never come. You have to be pro-active.

You might try article distribution, as mentioned above, but also realize that many of these "free article" repositories are there for SEO purposes only. Let's be realistic. It is likely that very few people are actually looking for articles about your subject in these various repositories, so they can re-print them.

Sure, you get a link within the repository, which is fine, I suppose, but also realize that the link is a part of a duplicate content page. If you are submitting the same content to 100 repositories, you essentially have 100 duplicates out there.

If your competitors have hundreds of links, repository linking alone will never get you where you need to be, in terms of link popularity. Because once you run out of repositories to submit to, then you have no more opportunities for links. One dimensional link solutions are always limited in their effectiveness.

I am not here to knock repositories, but to take some of the hype out of their importance and use. It's just another link tool, and in my opinion, it is one that has considerable limits as to it's effectiveness in highly-competitive situations.

In light competition, I am sure that article repositories appear to be very effective. In highly-competitive situations, you MUST take the right steps that will get you to that "critical mass" stage, whereby you begin to get a lot of those gratuitous, unsolicited links.

It takes upwards of one or two years to really "get there". I have seen this happen in case after case. When you get there, the rewards are considerable.

Most site owners do not follow this course. Their results will reflect that lack of commitment. There are few shortcuts.

[oomwrtu]

Great info Webnauts (I'll get to writing something right away!) and DomainDrivers (you've given me some insight into what I need to do for one of my newest projects, because although I have tried to follow some of the most common SEO practices, you laid them all out in an easy to understand way).

With all this info, you ought to be on your way to SEO greatness Research Bank. Good luck!

EDIT: Oh yes, I almost forgot, I agree with JuniorOnline on the links also.
[Edited by Mod Webnauts: Off-topic or links to your homepages are only allowed in your signature]

[Research Bank]

Thanks very much to all those that have replied, will come back on results as soon as I can sideline some time to start! Maxed out on other projects at the moment.

Thanks again.