What reports did you run and how did you find the problem?Originally Posted by janeth
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What reports did you run and how did you find the problem?
We have a couple tools we can use to check rankings but the main one I use is IBP. We run reporters a couple times a week and it highlights keywords that have dropped in rankings. Give me your website address and keywords and I will run you a report and show you what it looks like.
Thanx Janeth, the website address is www.spasofdisctinction.co.za and here are some keywords:
Bachelorette party Cellulite Couples Package Day Spa Dermalogica De-stress Facials Gift Voucher Hair removal Health Spa Manicure Massage Online vouchers Pedicure Skincare Spa Spa CapeTown Spa Century City Spa Day Spa East Rand Spa Fourways Spa Kempton Park Spa Krugesrdorp Spa Package Spa Sandton Spa Vouchers Spa weekend Spa West Rand Weightloss
Last edited by gazza777; 10-28-2011 at 10:07 AM. Reason: Correction
The URL is no good?
I suspect that he meant www.spasofdistinction.co.za.
The report is for the top 10, and it does not look like you are showing in the top ten for any of the keywords.
bsyppg.com/SPA.28.10.2011.rtf
Which is to be expected. Gazza, this is not a legitimate list of keywords. It's a list of fantasies. A list of disjointed single generic keywords. Who would ever search for the word manicure unless they were looking for the definition of manicure or perhaps pictures for research? No one really. Same with pedicure and cellulite. Not only will you never, ever achieve rankings for these keywords, you wouldn't want to (unless you were looking to sell the domain or turn it into another profitable, but socially useless made for adsense site). Online vouchers has got to be the worst of the bunch though. Why would you expect to, or even want to, rank for that term. Vouchers for what? Car repairs? 2 for 1 sandwich offers. Free dental exams? Your list simply doesn't make sense. I know it does to you, because mentally you already assumed that day spa services in your georgraphic area are already included in the generic keywords, but they are not. That's not how search engines work. Cellulite just means cellulite. Not "cellulite removal cape town" or "reduce cellulite cape town" or "get rid of cellulite clinic cape town". If you pursued keywords that made sense and were appropriate for your online goals (booking day spa appointments in your geographical area I assume) you'd probably be a lot happier with your SEO results. Just about anyone would feel like a failure with such a big list of generic, singular, super competitive, keyword goals.
Last edited by claybutler; 10-30-2011 at 08:59 AM.
Hi Claybuttler - thanx for your input. So the gist of your message is that singular keywords are a waste of time? We should rather package terms into how they are used? If I understand you correctly, an analogy would be ranking for oil, for a car service station, when we should be ranking 'car oil' and 'car service oil change' etc? How would you approach voucher sales as a request from the company themselves? Something like "spa massage vouchers"?
If yes, would we choose an exact match for these terms? My thinking is that if you had singluar terms for each of the three words in the above phrase, a Google Search would pick up that phrase?
As you can see, I do not specialise in SEO, only know the very basics, and outsource this function... so in essence the guys we have used are not up to scratch?
Very open to constructive criticism and suggestions!
Thanx Janeth - very interesting list, one which is not consistent with the reports I receive from my SEO guy.....
Yes, that is correct. You need to think along the lines of "key phrases" not "keywords". This is generally referred to as "long tail" key phrases. Let's say you rented bounce houses for birthday parties and events in the Dallas Texas area. You could spend all your SEO budget and optimize all your pages for "bounce house" and it wouldn't help you rent many more bounce houses. The reason being is that if you achieved top ten rankings for "bounce houses" you're going to get mostly people curious about the subject but not actual clients in your area who are in a position to rent. Essentially you'll get a huge amount of false positives. However if you pursue key phrases like "party rentals dallas texas", "children's party rentals dallas" and "bounce house rentals dallas" you are going to get traffic from pre qualified clients. If you are searching for those terms you are ready to buy. These are also the terms people would use to find bounce house rentals in the Dallas area. Plus, because they are geographically targeted long tail key phrases, the competition will be relatively low, so it will be much easier to achieve top ten rankings. So better rankings and better conversions, and for less effort. And you'll be surprised how many businesses don't even do this. I've had future clients come to me all stressed about why they can't find their brick and mortar business, and the first thing I notice is that they failed to even put what city they serve in any title tags, meta description, or even on the page copy!
So for your business, every client will be bound by geography and looking for a value added experience. They aren't just looking for a facial or massage they are looking for a "Swedish Massage Johannesburg" or a "Anti Aging Facial Treatment Johannesburg" or a "Luxury Day Spa Johannesburg" or a "Luxury Spa Vacation Package Johannesburg" or "Discount Spa Voucher Johannesburg". The reason I included discount is vouchers/gift certificates should really offer an incentive. Why search for a voucher unless you're looking for a deal? At least that's my understanding.
Long tail phrases work by being specific yet also by casting a wide net. So a page optimized for "Swedish Massage Johannesburg" will also do well for "Massage Johannesburg". But a page optimized for "Massage Johannesburg" will not do well for "Swedish Massage Johannesburg" unless the competition was very low and a partial key phrase match was enough to push you to the top.
So a down and dirty fix is to enhance the footer navigation to include long tail geographically specific key phrases and then do the same for all your title tags and meta description. You'll probably need to add more pages to implement this but it will work. It always works and it's so simple. Start at the top with your meta categories and then keep breaking it down until you have a lot of very specific pages targeting one theme each.
Last edited by claybutler; 10-30-2011 at 04:16 PM.
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