Am I Stupid, Confused or have I just fallen in love with mys

[zooey]

Am I Stupid, Confused or have I just fallen in love with myself?

I am having difficulty getting listed in Google. I am not sure why. My site is http://www.TheDigitalHorse.com and I show up in google only as a paid link and if you type in my domain directly.

I would like to appear at the top of the list when the key words Dressage Tests, or Dressage Test, or Eventing Tests, or Dressage or Eventing and searched for. I have tried to create links from my site with other domains

http://www.SportHorseUSA.com
http://www.DigitalDressage.com
http://www.Three-Day-Event.com
http://www.Dressage.BZ

I have plenty more domains I can use this way but these did not seem to help.

I am not sure but I think I might have gotten in trouble when I forwarded my domain http://www.SportHorseUSA.com to http://www.TheDigitalHorse.com when I first published the site. At that time I was ranked 5th for about 8 months. Then I changed the domain http://www.SportHorseUSA.com to be its own website that I hoped would create a link to http://www.TheDigitalHorse.com.

What kind of monster have I created? I am utterly confused because if you look at the sites that are returned on Google with the above referenced key words, they are just awful. (This is the part where I fear I have fallen in love with myself) But I can honestly claim that I am the only site on the web that offers what I have, and I think it is a pretty darn good product.

I also offer Free Classifieds, Forums, Postcards, and a Calendar all of these are housed under the domain http://www.TheDigitalHorse.com except the Classifieds http://www.Dressage.bz. Is this a mistake?

I have gone to the google recommended links on how to get listed etc, and I think I have followed their advice and I have made comparisons to other sites that offer “similar” products.

Where have I gone wrong? And who can help me? I am willing to invest in a professional promoter but I would like a bit of advice on what to look for.


Best Regards

Robin

[rlrouse]

TheDigitalHorse.com is already listed in Google with a PageRank of 4 on the home page. Did you mean you're having trouble get ranked well?

The main problem that I see is a serious lack of backlinks (only 4). Get some inbound links pointing to your home page (with the keywords/phrases you mentioned in the anchor text) and you'll be on your way.

But you need to be very careful linking in from your own sites. A cross-linking penalty can drop you all the way to the bottom of the SERPS. You need links from other (people's) sites.

Your title tag should have a couple of keywords/phrases in it. The URL in there won't help you bit.

Your home page consists mostly of images and very little text. What text you do have is pushed way down on the page by all the menu items and graphics. To rank well for keywords and keyphrases, you need to have:

1 - The keywords/phrases in the link anchor text of a good number of inbound links.

2 - Keywords/phrases in the title tag. Don't dilute the title with a URL or company name. Use keywords only.

3 - Several instances of your targeted keywords/phrases in the text of the page, and near the top of the HTML code of the page (move your text up in the HTML).

One final note: The menu you're using at the top of the page looks and works great, but it's terrible for your pages' rankings. I would replace it with plain ole HTML text links.

Good luck!

[zooey]

Okay I think I got it fixed. I made all the updates altough it was very painful to dump my navigation menu and go with a text menu.

Thanks for your help

Best Regards

Robin