New Site Search Critique
-
Hi
I am a huge fan of the SEOMOZ site and this great community which has helped me learn the current SEO skills I have now which are still very basic compared to the pros on the forum.
I have tried to follow best practice regarding onsite and technical seo when developing my new site www.cheapfindergames.com and I would really appreciate it if experts on the forum could spare a minute to critique the site from a search perspective please
This will give any elements of what onsite and technical SEO I done well and what aspects still need work.
I am currently trying to build quality links and social mentions into the site which will take time, and the site has been designed around usability and conversions.
Many Thanks
Ian
-
Re: item 1 - the answer can be found in the first response to this Q&A: http://www.seomoz.org/q/i-need-help-with-htaccess-redirect
If you would like to learn more about htaccess, an excellent resource is here: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/the-ultimate-guide-to-htaccess-files/
Re: item 3, no damage
Re: item 7 - I did share a suggestion. I prefer to use the home page to target the site's brand. I use inner pages which are 1-click from the home page to target the site's main keywords. Your site can target 100s of keywords so unless one particular keywords is highly dominate over the others, this approach is my preference.
Re: item 10 - no. The W3C is the governing body for HTML/CSS code. I was referring to using their validator tool to ensure the code used on your site is valid.
Re: sitemaps, there are numerous software apps available to create a sitemap. Find one you like and set a CRON job to run as needed to generate a new sitemap.
-
Hi Ryan
Thanks for the great feedback. Coming back to some of your points
1.) How can I resolve this in the .htaccess file - what script is required so that it points to http://www.cheapfindergames.com therefore reducing canonical urls.
3.) Would this cause any damage if it is left as it is?
7.) Any suggestions on what you feel would work? Perhaps
Video Games Price Comparison - Cheapfindergames.com ?
10.) Do you mean putting javascript and css in external files rather than inline?
+ What would you recommend to create an XML sitemap, as the site is a dynamic site which changes throughout the day
-
Hi Ian,
As you requested I have taken a look at your site and would share some initial items which can be improved from a SEO perspective:
1. You have duplicated pages. You shared your home page URL as http://www.cheapfindergames.com. If you select your logo in the upper-right corner of your page, it shows the URL as http://www.cheapfindergames.com/index.php. Both URLs load which is an SEO issue. Note: the HOME link in your footer has the same issue.
2. Your site lacks a 404 page. Provide a helpful 404 page with your site's navigation and search box.
3. Your robots.txt page blocks the /retailer.php page which is unnecessary since you have a redirect in place.
4. Drop the technology extension from your URLs. For example your "About" page URL is http://www.cheapfindergames.com/aboutus.php. It is not helpful to users nor search engines to know it is a "php" page. Additionally the technology may change in the future causing unnecessary redirects. Try the following URL instead: http://www.cheapfindergames.com/aboutus
5. Organize your social engagement. You have a large facebook block, a tiny twitter widget and then over off to the side is your G+ block. Try offering a single clean block for all your social sites.
6. Your home page text block has grammar issues "...from the major uk retailers to bring you’re the best price and deal."
7. As Kieran shared, the title should be adjusted. It's often best for your home page to focus your brand "Cheap Finder Games" and allow an inner page focus each of the many keywords you wish to target. If you decide otherwise, pick one keyword focus for your page.
8. Your mailing list seems to be the primary means for you to keep in contact with visitors. You may want to offer a clearer Call To Action for signup.
9. Your meta description is too long and a bit unfocused.
10. You can do a bit of code clean up and allow your code to validate.
These tips will hopefully give you some initial direction with your site. Best of luck.
-
Thanks Kieran I understand now
Totally agree and every day I try and improve it, I was just looking for additional insight into perhaps things i might have missed that would have an affect on rankings.
-
In the footer of the page you have 3 links to these loactions but the links are just to the existing page.
Also when you say you have 99% covered the fact of the matter is that you never have everything covered and for a nice like yours I would spend time every day looking at my content working on various aspects, checking my keywords, and a host of other items.
-
Thanks yes the keywords are xbox 360, PS3, computer games, Wii and then the long tail keyphrase would be the likes of Best Price of Fifa 12 Xbox 360 which I cover in the details page
http://www.cheapfindergames.com/games-fifa-12-xbox-360/B005A2BDZY
- you mention " Wii/ PS3 / Xbox links are only directed to the home page" could you explain what you mean by this please?
ALSO if any other experts can locate anything I have missed with regard to onsite and technical SEO it would be great to know, or have I covered the 99% of what's required.
-
From a conversions point of view I do not think the landing page encourages immediate action for people arriving there.
Your Title tag
Compare Prices – Best deals offers on computer games for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC | Cheapfindergames
looks a bit wordy and I am not sure if it is focused on your keywords (which you don't mention but I assume are games.
Plus as an FYI our Wii/ PS3 / Xbox links are only directed to the home page at the moment so might be worth correcting (actually I wouldn't have them twice on the page
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
New SEO manager needs help! Currently only about 15% of our live sitemap (~4 million url e-commerce site) is actually indexed in Google. What are best practices sitemaps for big sites with a lot of changing content?
In Google Search console 4,218,017 URLs submitted 402,035 URLs indexed what is the best way to troubleshoot? What is best guidance for sitemap indexation of large sites with a lot of changing content? view?usp=sharing
Technical SEO | | Hamish_TM1 -
Why is Google not indexing my site?
I'm a bit confused as to why my site just isn't indexing on Google. Even if I type in my brand name, my social channels rank and there's no evidence of my website. I've followed all of the advice I've read and gone into webmaster tools and got the Wordpress yoast plug-in but nothing seems to be making a difference!One thing I've noticed, in Google Webmaster Tools it says "Couldn’t communicate with the DNS server." in site errors. I've called GoDaddy and they said that everything is fine. A bit frustrating. Trying to work out what my next steps should be but feeling a bit lost to be honest! Any help GREATLY appreciated!
Technical SEO | | j1066s0 -
Poor Site Performance
Hello, A couple of months ago, this site was dropped from google due to a noindex, nofollow tag thewealthymind(dot)com It's back up, but performing poorly. Take for example the term "The 4 step belief change" in the home page title tag. This site is the #1 authority on that and yet it ranks 3rd below weaker pages. There's 180 404 errors in GWT, many from past versions of pages of the site but also including thewealthymind(dot)com/index.html and thewealthymind(dot)com/index.htm even though there is a rel=cononical tag on the home page. What's the process of getting this site back to health?
Technical SEO | | BobGW0 -
Www. version of my site shows nothing in Open Site Explorer
When I first setup my site the domain was learnbonds.com. I moved hosts a couple of months ago and as part of the process I asked them to make the site show as www.learnbonds.com which they did. Now however when I goto www.learnbonds.com in open site explorer it says there is no data. When I enter learnbonds.com into open site explorer it gives me data but says that the site has been redirected to the www. version which shows no data. Also in google webmaster when I try to set the preferred domain as the www. version it gives me the following message: Part of the process of setting a preferred domain is to verify that you own http://www.learnbonds.com/. Please verify http://www.learnbonds.com/. I am concerned that this is hurting my SEO and would appreciate any advice you can give. Thanks Dave
Technical SEO | | fxtrader19790 -
Site maintenance and crawling
Hey all, Rarely, but sometimes we require to take down our site for server maintenance, upgrades or various other system/network reasons. More often than not these downtimes are avoidable and we can redirect or eliminate the client side downtime. We have a 'down for maintenance - be back soon' page that is client facing. ANd outages are often no more than an hour tops. My question is, if the site is crawled by Bing/Google at the time of site being down, what is the best way of ensuring the indexed links are not refreshed with this maintenance content? (ie: this is what the pages look like now, so this is what the SE will index). I was thinking that add a no crawl to the robots.txt for the period of downtime and remove it once back up, but will this potentially affect results as well?
Technical SEO | | Daylan1 -
How do i use Linkedin to promote my site
Hi i have heard so much about Linkedin but i am not sure how to use it. I would like to start off using it for free and have opened an account but i am not sure how to use it to promote my site and to gain traffic before i go to the paid service. Can anyone please give me some basic advice on how to use the free service to gain traffic to my site and also the best way to use it. I want to try and use it to promote my articles on www.in2town.co.uk
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Which is more accurate? site: or GWT?
when viewing urls in google's index, is it more accurate to refer to site:www.domain.com or google webmaster tools (urls in web index)?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Canonical on ecommerce site
I have read tons of guides about canonical implementaiton but still am confused about how I should best use it. On my site with tens of thousands of urls and thousands of afiiliates and shopping networks sending traffic, is it smart to simply add the tag to every page and redirect to the same url. In doing this would that solve the problem of a single page having many different entrances with different tracking codes? Is there a better way to handle this? Also is there any potential problems with rolling out the tag to all pages if they are simply refrencing themselves in the tag? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | Gordian0