Independent Web Advice

Question from Mr X

I am wondering if you could take a look at my website SITE NAME REMOVED. I am wanting better page ranks and very new to this. Also if you could include what the cost would be to start getting better search engine results. Thanks

Answer from Paul Drewett.

Dear Mr X,

Thank you for your enquiry. I have taken a quick look at your web site and I think you have done a good job so far.

There is much I could compliment about your site and aspects I could criticise. However your product range is excellent and your prices appear competitive. It appears that your site launched in August last year and Google now assigns your home page with a PR of 3. I think that is pretty good.

"I am wanting better page ranks and very new to this."

In wanting better page ranks I presume that you are ultimately seeking to generate more sales. If it is true that increasing your sales is the ultimate goal, then I wonder why you are concerned with page rank at all, instead of concentrating on your users experience.

Before engaging in any search engine optimisation tasks at all, I would strongly advise that you complete your site. Your 'about us' page is missing any information at all. This gives the site the appearance of being incomplete, a red flag to customers, chasing away potential buyers. The same can be said for your clearance sale.

When I viewed your site there were some missing graphics (ie; button.php?id=183) on the home page, another sign of neglect.

The youth jacket sizes were also missing from the size chart, losing all the potential customers buying for children.

When I checked your privacy policy it was actually a terms and conditions document, another red flag for customers.

Your ticket system is excellent, a lovely piece of Open Source software I had not seen before, but where is your address? Where is your phone number? Even Google likes to find telephone numbers. If a customer can't find one, they will go somewhere else.

I also looked for a guarantee. Since I can't actually see what the Jackets look like on models, or photo's of the actual items, I can't tell what the Jackets are actually like in terms of quality or feel. So what sort of guarantee do you offer for me? If I can't find it easily, then I will be off too. I think you should offer a no quibble, money back guarantee, if not fully satisfied with your new jacket. (They pay for the return postage of course). If your jackets are good, you will have nothing to worry about.

Incidentally, here in the UK, the law gives consumers recieving goods by post 30 days to change their mind. Offering a 30 day money back guarantee is quite easy here, you have to do it anyway, why not tell people.

I see you are using Urchin to track google sales, but have you considered adding a Google Site Map. This is free and fully explained by Google themselves. Urchin is designed to show you which keywords are performing well for you (by keyword here I mean the search word or term typed into google that resulted in a click to your website). Yet I cannot find any evidence of keyword focussing on your site apart from the obviously highly repeated term 'Jackets'.

You are in a very competitive market. I could buy similar jackets from nascar.com themselves. There are many peer sites like hotjackets.com competing with you and in certain respects they do a better job.

I will gladly suggest a course of action for you to take, but I would need to know more about your circumstances, your technical abilities your motivation for selling Jackets. I would strongly suggest that you abandon any SEO activities (and PPC advertising if you are doing any) until you have fixed user issues on your site.

Would you prefer a million visitors a week, and ten sales, or a thousand visitors a week and one hundred sales?

If the latter, you have a lot of work to do, reviewing your products, focussing on appropriate search terms and writing really good, relevant content that drives customers to the checkout. Most of this work can be done by yourself and most of it for free.

If the former, then you need to pick a single range and focus on that market. You will probably need a new domain name too. Try a three or four word combination like KidsDisneyJacketsOnline, NascarJacketShop or NextDayWhiteSoxJackets. You could always use SITE NAME EDITED OUT for something else, 'stuff' implies gadgets and bits and bobs to me.

You have done a lot of good things in the construction of your site, but now you have to look at the user experience and content of your site. Like proof reading, this is better done by someone else.

Try to get lots of opinions from all sorts of people, but only ask people who actually use the Internet on a regular basis. Also, try to take only one or two main issues away from each interview. You can't do everything at once and great websites don't grow that way anyway.

"Also if you could include what the cost would be to start getting better search engine results."

It is difficult to discuss costs until I have a better picture of your needs and circumstances. My aim is always to generate more revenue for my clients and search engine results is only one aspect of those efforts. Pleasing the Google robots is one thing, but pleasing your users is another, and they usually want totally different things that are often contradictory to each other.

I hope some of this has helped. If I have missed the mark entirely and completely misunderstood your business (if the site is only an affiliate site or alternatively if you are actually a large bricks and mortar business) then I apologise. I would be interested to learn more about your business with a view to helping further.

Thank you once again for your enquiry. I look forward to hearing from you again,

Best wishes,

Paul.