help needed with website SEO

[SilverNodashi]

Hi all,

I need some help with a website and search engine ranking, please. The website is http://www.3ll.co.za.The first page is basically a "fancy menu", with 6 images which all re-directs to their respective pages. In itself, the website content won't really change often, or much at all, which I know isn't good for search engine ranking.

Does anyone have any tips / suggestions for me, to drive more traffic to this website, other than google ads / paid-for directory listings / etc? It's a friend's website, and her cash-flow is a bit crippled with the recession, so we need to think of creative ideas on how to drive more traffic. The website is listed in a few free directories, but even then it doesn't help much.

 

[crazy_cat]

some tips i gathered over a period of time aimed at website content

1) you may want to read through http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf first

2) i see that 2010 accomadation for the world cup features in most of the alt text. my suggestion is put more content related to 2010, on the home page. the bots see that first. use the guide above as a reference to format the content

3) i think the basic problem on the home page is that is no decent content for bots!! i think this a prevelant feature across the site.

4) i noticed you have css defined in some of the pages - take it out and use a stylesheet instead

5) Blog about it - and by that i mean dont SPAM. have some decent write ups about the guest lodge on some 2010 accomadation websites etc...

 

[Rate My ISP]

For one page headings are not well executed, make them more descriptive. Instead of "About Us" and "Rooms". Make it "About Liebeloft Guest House", and "Rooms at Liebeloft Guest House". etc. Or even add "in Edenvale" after Guest House.

 

[crazy_cat]

For one page headings are not well executed, make them more descriptive. Instead of "About Us" and "Rooms". Make it "About Liebeloft Guest House", and "Rooms at Liebeloft Guest House". etc. Or even add "in Edenvale" after Guest House.

and South africa, maybe some stadium names and locations as well.

 

[tco21]

We have 52 guests online

The MyBB effect!

 

[Saidar]

Hey,

First off, you need to know what you want to rank for in Google. Since your market is accomodation, forget to get any free traffic from Google. It will take months of hard work to get that site of yours to rank for any keyword relating to accomodation.

I would advise you to run a Google Adwords targeted campaign. Although very expensive and competitive if you find the right guy to help you you can make it succesful.

The most important thing that you should change is your title tags. Go to google keyword tool: https://adwords.google.co.za/select/KeywordToolExternal
and see what people are searching for, and how many times a month the certain keyword is searched for. Put the match type of exact and the country south africa.

Then change your page titles to the relevant keywords that may fit them that has enough traffic. You won't rank for those keywords, as the competition is too great but it is a start

 

[Rate My ISP]

Couldn't you find a better domain name? 3ll is short but does not say much. If you decide to advertise with Google Adwords one day. Don't send people to the home page. Even though you have alt tags on the images. Rather send them to http://www.3ll.co.za/about-us.html where the are mentions of "Guest House" and "Edenvale" in text. As you will be bidding on keywords such as "guest house" or "guest house edenvale" you'll get a better quality score.

 

[tco21]

Agreed about the domain name. The letter "L" doesn't exactly flow off the tongue when consecutive. But now that he's in the boat, he may as well float it.

 

[Rate My ISP]

3lguesthouse.co.za, llguesthouse.co.za is still available as is liebeloft.co.za (even this is better than 3ll.co.za), as well as liebeloftguesthouse.co.za all is still available. You did ask this question about SEO. I'm just thinking like a search engine here.

 

[Saidar]

3lguesthouse.co.za, llguesthouse.co.za is still available as is liebeloft.co.za (even this is better than 3ll.co.za), as well as liebeloftguesthouse.co.za all is still available. You did ask this question about SEO. I'm just thinking like a search engine here.

Yes a keyword rich domain helps a lot, but is not neccesary if the niche is very competitive. In his case a keyword rich domain will bring the best results in a short time

 

[Rate My ISP]

Yes a keyword rich domain helps a lot, but is not neccesary if the niche is very competitive. In his case a keyword rich domain will bring the best results in a short time

You seem to under-estimate and then over-estimate the time it takes to get decent search engine rankings.

If they want results fast, they are going to have to advertise and as someone who manages Adwords accounts for a living I reckon it is important unless of course they want to pay more than other advertisers bidding on the same keywords.

 

[tco21]

...unless of course they want to pay more than other advertisers bidding on the same keywords.

Dude, please rephrase this! Me no understando. Thanks!

 

[Rate My ISP]

Dude, please rephrase this! Me no understando. Thanks!

I'm referring to advertising with Google Adwords. Adwords uses an “algorithm” to decide which ads should show when. Besides the auction system (he who pays most is on top), they employ a “Quality Score” system. To prevent people from gaming the system to find a cheap way to pay for more expensive ads. A bad example: I sell new cars. I should bid on "new cars". But "new cars" cost R10 per click. But I see that "second hand cars" only cost R5 per click to advertise so I bid on "second hand cars" instead.

Its a bad example (can people looking for a 2nd hand car afford a new one etc.) but people have found ways to game the system hence the need for quality score.

 

[Saidar]

You seem to under-estimate and then over-estimate the time it takes to get decent search engine rankings.

If they want results fast, they are going to have to advertise and as someone who manages Adwords accounts for a living I reckon it is important unless of course they want to pay more than other advertisers bidding on the same keywords.

Yes sorry I typed that a bit fast, the moral of the story is that organic rankings will take months.

Adwords a better option, and very important to get some help, Adwords can lose you a lot of money if you don't know what you are doing

 

[SilverNodashi]

some tips i gathered over a period of time aimed at website content

1) you may want to read through http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf first

2) i see that 2010 accomadation for the world cup features in most of the alt text. my suggestion is put more content related to 2010, on the home page. the bots see that first. use the guide above as a reference to format the content

3) i think the basic problem on the home page is that is no decent content for bots!! i think this a prevelant feature across the site.

4) i noticed you have css defined in some of the pages - take it out and use a stylesheet instead

5) Blog about it - and by that i mean dont SPAM. have some decent write ups about the guest lodge on some 2010 accomadation websites etc...

Thanx,

I have implemented many of the suggestions - which I feel are relevant

2) Although a lot of people make a fuss about 2010 (which is just another year in the calendar), after July when the soccer cup is gone, this guest house will still be around, so I don't want to focus on 2010 only. Besides, most of the foreigners / travelers don't know what 2010 is about. It's only the South Africans who go ape about it.

3) what do you suggest I put here, without braking the layout too much? I don't want to "key word spam" either.

4) We use Joomla for the site, and the CSS you see is that which is put in by the WYSIWYG editor - does it really make that big a difference though?

5) this is a tough one. The lady who runs the guest house isn't too technical, and there's nothing as bad as a blog with 5 posts, 4 years old. But I'll run the idea by her and see what she thinks.

 

[SilverNodashi]

For one page headings are not well executed, make them more descriptive. Instead of "About Us" and "Rooms". Make it "About Liebeloft Guest House", and "Rooms at Liebeloft Guest House". etc. Or even add "in Edenvale" after Guest House.

done, thanx for the suggestion

and South africa, maybe some stadium names and locations as well.

the website / guest house has no connection with any sport stadiums, and I don't see the point since after July (which will be over quicker than you can think) it will be rather confusing to have those references on the site as well. This isn't a "tourist attraction". If, on the other hand, she was in Dullstroom / the Garden Route / foot of the Dragensberg / etc (for example) then those kind of references would be beneficial.

Couldn't you find a better domain name? 3ll is short but does not say much. If you decide to advertise with Google Adwords one day. Don't send people to the home page. Even though you have alt tags on the images. Rather send them to http://www.3ll.co.za/about-us.html where the are mentions of "Guest House" and "Edenvale" in text. As you will be bidding on keywords such as "guest house" or "guest house edenvale" you'll get a better quality score.

I didn't choose the name But I'm busy talking to her about this to see if we can get an alternative.

Hey,

First off, you need to know what you want to rank for in Google. Since your market is accomodation, forget to get any free traffic from Google. It will take months of hard work to get that site of yours to rank for any keyword relating to accomodation.

I would advise you to run a Google Adwords targeted campaign. Although very expensive and competitive if you find the right guy to help you you can make it succesful.

This isn't entirely related - i.e. the marketing of the website & the search engine traffic is a bit different. She does marketing in other places though, and don't want to use google ads.

The most important thing that you should change is your title tags. Go to google keyword tool: https://adwords.google.co.za/select/KeywordToolExternal
and see what people are searching for, and how many times a month the certain keyword is searched for. Put the match type of exact and the country south africa.

Then change your page titles to the relevant keywords that may fit them that has enough traffic. You won't rank for those keywords, as the competition is too great but it is a start

Thanx, will do

 

[zagame]

O/T

slightly O/T

since you are using joomla and have a YSLow score of 72 on the site mentioned

you might find these 2 posts of interest

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=3531386&postcount=28

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=3533846&postcount=33

I got my Yslow score from 72 to 81 ( once i get around to editing the imagesprites it should get 90+ on my joomla site

 

[crazy_cat]

Thanx,

I have implemented many of the suggestions - which I feel are relevant

2) Although a lot of people make a fuss about 2010 (which is just another year in the calendar), after July when the soccer cup is gone, this guest house will still be around, so I don't want to focus on 2010 only. Besides, most of the foreigners / travelers don't know what 2010 is about. It's only the South Africans who go ape about it.

3) what do you suggest I put here, without braking the layout too much? I don't want to "key word spam" either.

4) We use Joomla for the site, and the CSS you see is that which is put in by the WYSIWYG editor - does it really make that big a difference though?

5) this is a tough one. The lady who runs the guest house isn't too technical, and there's nothing as bad as a blog with 5 posts, 4 years old. But I'll run the idea by her and see what she thinks.

2) the suggestion was based in that i noticed 2010 being referred to in the alt text of images. however, you are right - the guest lodge will there afterwards as well. That being said, it may be usefull though to have a short term campaign and content aimed towards the world cup. So the question is, are you looking for a quick win or a long lasting solution. I think a previous post did mention that organic results are 'difficult'/takes time to obtain using white hat SEO techniques

3) hmmm..good point. Think of the home page as an introduction to the rest of the sight. There needs to be some solid content here referring to accomadation, location etc. I understand that this may be difficult in that it may dilute the content from the rest of the site - tough one!! On the other hand, I think there probably is a lot more that can be said about the lodge. Maybe granular detail should also be included.

4) i believe it does. when a bot looks at the page, all its gonna see towards the top of the page is ot content but rather css, jscript etc. when content is placed towards the top of the page it has more relevance and importance. Remember that the bots dont see the page like how you and i see it. All it sees it plain text.

5) Another good point - however the blog was just an idea. What about having a write up about the guest lodge on well reputed accomadation sites. These may be hard to find though.

SEO is very broad with many affecting factors - i dont its possible to get this done overnight. Also think big picture - i assume that the lodge long term is a long term venture, so the same type of thinkin needs to be given to the website.

 

[crazy_cat]

the website / guest house has no connection with any sport stadiums, and I don't see the point since after July (which will be over quicker than you can think) it will be rather confusing to have those references on the site as well. This isn't a "tourist attraction". If, on the other hand, she was in Dullstroom / the Garden Route / foot of the Dragensberg / etc (for example) then those kind of references would be beneficial.

so the question is what is of interest in the area or relavant to the lodge.

1. what makes it better?
2. what sets is apart?
3. why would i want to stay there?
4. is this aimed at businessman, tourists, short term lodgers etc and maybe what does it offer the various types of clientele that you may get?
5. or rather what is your target market?

i think by asking more questions, it may give an indication as to the type of content needed on the site. In addition, your friend probably had some ide, vision, plan as to why the lodge was started in the first place = more content

 

[jonno_081]

Hi there...

Google can't read images as you know, so your front page is hard to optimise as it stands (I know you have alt text there which is good). So, you should really focus on optimising the other pages. Pick a keyword and write a good page about that. For instance "luxury rooms", then write a good page about that. Maybe another page about "Delicious meals". Write a keyword targetted page about that, etc....

I wrote a whole lot about that kind of thing at my blog: SoftSmart - Blog

It doesn't look like you've used H1 tags (not that I looked that closely)...

Regards,

John