Advice needed

[Yar]

Hello

I've been lurking on this board the last few days tring to learn as much as possible. Here’s the situation. I work for a small E-commerce start up. Our site Ancientdrum.com has very poor web ranking. The CEO tells me this is because our site has not been optimized in months, we switched hosts, and our past web master did something or the other. This problem is further aggravated because our admin who was in charge of the search engine optimization and web marketing dropped the ball numerous times and finally quit in shame.

I’m the network admin, and although I have no or little knowledge in this area, have volunteered to oversee it.

Here’s where we are at so far. From what I understand we are listed in the major search engines. Of course when you do a search for our company name we are on top, but if you use any of the keywords related to our products we rank very low if at all. We have quite a few info sites that link back to our commerce site.

We have hired an online sales and marketing company (wheelmedia.com) to do our search engine optimization. This was done before I took over this project. I did some research on this company today and they don’t seem to be listed by the major search engines. Second they have zero google rank.

I looked over wheelmedia's proposal and it seems to cover extensively how they will research our customers and optimize our keyword/meta tags for them. Submit us to the major search engines, and launch a pay per click campaign. They also will give us a monthly report and the proposal is for 4 months. From what I understand we have already paid them a large deposit to start the job.

My concern is that wheelmedia itself seems to have a low or non-existent web ranking. There was little mention in the proposal about link promotion. Which I understand is important. The things they proposed to do seem to be something well within my teams ability to do ourselves.

Presently we have two web masters. One of them I know quite well and we attended college together. He designed some sites for other clients that all have top 3 rankings. Just from my description was very unimpressed with how this project had been initiated. We are both onboard this project now and he has been revising the keyword/meta tags/ and description of our various sites. From what he was telling me we had too many Meta tags and after I got to see the list I agree.

At this point it seems we are going to continue using wheelmedia and I need to know what signs to watch for when dealing with them. I’m very nervous about their pay per click campaign. They asked us to budget about $100 a month for it, which seems reasonable. After reading this forum I’m a lot more wary. Any advice on how to keep from getting burned?

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums Yar! :hi:

I can't help ya with that company as I've never heard of them. Doing a search on Google shows zero links leading back to them so it kind of looks like they are a new company. You can't be sure about that though as they might have opened up again with a different url.

Sorry I have nothing further to add but just be aware and watch things.

[Kal]

Welcome Yar :hi:

Personally, I don't buy into the hype that a SEO company needs to have high rankings for their own site to be any good. Often these companies are too busy optimizing their client sites to concentrate on their own rankings. You know the old story, a plumber's taps are always leaking :) Also, as you can imagine, some SEO related keywords are extremely competitive and not worth trying to rank for. You don't mention what keywords you used to try to find them, but maybe that was the problem? I've never heard of Wheelmedia, but as Doug said, they may be a new company, not yet well established.

What is more important is how their clients rank and what their clients think of them. It might be a little late now, but ask Wheelmedia for samples of their client rankings, client testimonials and also check out the way the sites have been optimized, making sure they've used ethical methods. Your webmaster sounds like he knows what he's doing - get him to check out the way their client sites were optimized if you're concerned.

As for link promotion - not all SEO's do this, but you're right - it is important. I find it too time consuming so I outsource it for my clients. You can either hire link building specialists, or invest some time into building your links yourself by locating high quality sites relating to your industry/products and approaching them about reciprocal linking.

Best of luck!

[tarangpune]

We are a company based in Pune India and involved in execution of Web based projects. We have a highly experienced team of Graphic designers and programmers. You may also visit us at [url edited] . We are looking for long term assciation with companies who would like to outsource there web development requirements.

Warm regards.
Tarang Patel

[Please don't advertise here. URL deleted. - Jill]

[Mertu]

Originally posted by Yar
[I looked over wheelmedia's proposal and it seems to cover extensively how they will research our customers and optimize our keyword/meta tags for them. Submit us to the major search engines, and launch a pay per click campaign. They also will give us a monthly report and the proposal is for 4 months. From what I understand we have already paid them a large deposit to start the job.


From this, looking at their web site and their clients, it looks like your company has hired a graphics design firm that has a sideline of outdated "meta tags are everything" SEO and PPC management--to try and counter the fact that their SEO strategy doesn't work.

If they use a service like WordTracker, then their keyword results should be useful. I'd ask... and if they said they do, I'd ask to see printouts of some of the results from WordTracker to make sure.

I'd nix the search engine submission or at least ask where they're submitting. If they do one of these "Submit to a million billion search engines", then all you get is (re-)submitted to less than a dozen real engines and then a million billion fake sites looking for valid addresses to add to spam lists. (Or give them the e-mail address of a coworker you don't like when they do these submissions.)

The PPC campaign may be worthwhile because nothing else they propose will improve rankings on non-paid results. I'd ask for details on what PPC services they'll be using. If the names don't ring a bell, investigate.

IMO, it looks like you and your friend are going to be doing the real work for the next 4 months if you want anything done for real SEO. After that, dump wheelmedia for SEO and either keep doing it yourself or make sure you get to pick their replacement.


Sean

[Mel]

Hi Yar:

First of all don't let them fill your homepage with a nice big graphic and nothing else as they have done on their own and some of the customers sites they have showcased.

I would:
1. Ask them for their keyword research, not just the results by the methods. Make sure you sign off on the keywords list for each page.

2. Ask them to provide an online spider report and keyword analysis for each page they produce for you. Their own home page produces a pretty dismal ranking.

3. Ask for a list of search engines they intedn to submit to and make sure you sign off on it before Before they submit. Above all don't let them use one of those "Free submit to 200,000 search engines" services.

FWIW I tend to agree with Mertu that you have primarily a graphic design company as Opposed to an SEO firm. Certainly I cannot seem to find any discussion of SEO on their site.

Here is a copy of the tags in their own home page:
<meta name="keywords" content="Sacramento web designer, small business, affordable internet design, copywriting web development interactive advertising, Sacramento web design,internet development, web marketing, internet designer, web designerSacramento web designs, web agency, web agencies, interactive agency webmarketing Sacramento webdesigner web designer Sacramento web designerswebsite design web site design internet marketing email advertising web pagedesign, webpage design, web site redesign, Sacramento web design company,web studio ecommerce e-commerce, internet sales online store, webconsulting, email campaign, email marketing, web design, email advertising, internet marketing">

<meta name="description" content="All things web. Affordable design, strategy, & marketing.">

If they are stressing SEo they seem to have forgotten it in their own metas.

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by Yar

Here’s the situation. I work for a small E-commerce start up. Our site Ancientdrum.com has very poor web ranking. The CEO tells me this is because our site has not been optimized in months, we switched hosts, and our past web master did something or the other. This problem is further aggravated because our admin who was in charge of the search engine optimization and web marketing dropped the ball numerous times and finally quit in shame.


Greetings Yar,

The poor Web Ranking is due to the fact that there is VERY LITTLE to index to give it a high ranking.


Any advice on how to keep from getting burned?


If you were our client, we'd give you the following advice.

1.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on Meta Keyword Tags for optimization.

2.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on submitting to the major search engines.

3.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on lengthy contracts beyond what you are comfortable with or certain SEO or marketing techniques that you are not comfortable with.

4.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that use the term "search engine tricks" or "tricks."

5.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that does not explain to you how important proper linking for your site is and then explains just how to link all your pages.

6.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that does not explain how important it is to acquire links (one-way links and not reciprocal links) from LOTS of RELATED sites that include your keywords in the Anchor Tag Text.

7.) Embrace any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on keyword rich content.

8.) Embrace any SEO or SEO Firm that knows that Meta Keyword Tags are useless for optimization (except for Inktomi).

9.) Embrace any SEO or SEO Firm that knows that submitting to the major search engines is useless for optimization (and inclusion to many, unless you pay for inclusion).

10.) Embrace any SEO or SEO Firm that knows that getting high rankings is ALL about links and proper linking.



I’m the network admin, and although I have no or little knowledge in this area, have volunteered to oversee it.


In our opinion, this is a good thing, as you have not been too misinformed yet to be set in your ways/thinking.


Here’s where we are at so far. From what I understand we are listed in the major search engines. Of course when you do a search for our company name we are on top, but if you use any of the keywords related to our products we rank very low if at all.


First, what are these keywords of which you speak?

The only keywords found on your Home Page are ...


Ancient Drum Village

Does Your Machine have a Flash player? Are You Unsure?

Click Here for a Flash Version of Our Site Click Here for an HTML Version of Our Site


Again, you have very little to index to give it a high ranking. We always recommend that you have at least 250 words of keyword rich content on any page you want optimized for the search engines.

Of course if you don't want the page indexed in the search engines then you don't need to use any words at all.)

We recommend that you create a robots.txt (http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion-admin.html) file as this will allow all search engine spiders easy access to your site.

Your Home Page redirects to another page. This is NOT a good idea. Change it.

Use ... ancientdrum.com ... as your Home Page.

Your HTML Title Tag needs to be changed to use ONLY your 3-word keyword phrase (then add some brief and compelling copy, that will attract uses to click on YOUR link in the search engine results).

Your HTML Title Tag currently looks like this ...

<title>Ancient Drum Village</title>

Seeing that in the search engine results tells us absolutely nothing about your products.

Our advice is to use something along these lines ...

<title>Self Hypnosis And Relaxation Techniques - Create Positive Changes In Your Life With Choice Of Backgrounds On CD Or Cassette</title>

A quick check of these keywords shows that they get the following amount of daily searches per day across the Net.

They are certainly enough to warrant optimizing for.

------
relaxation techniques 535
self-hypnosis 293
self hypnosis 958
------


From what I understand we are listed in the major search engines.



4 pages in Google
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.ancientdrum.com+ancientdrum%2Ecom

6 pages in AllTheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/search?q=ancientdrum.com&c=web&f=+%2Bsiteid.siteid%3A26734761&l=any&cs=utf-8

You are not listed in Yahoo.com or DMOZ.org which you should be, as that will increase your PageRank which in turn helps increase your rankings.


We have quite a few info sites that link back to our commerce site.


Also, a quick look at your link popularity shows ...

------
8 Alltheweb
10 AltaVista
0 AOL
14 Google
3 HotBot
5 MSN
------

You will need A LOT MORE inbound links than that if you expect to rank well for your keywords.

SEO TIP: Getting high rankings is ALL about links and linking, proper linking that is. Include your keywords in the Anchor Tag Text of ALL inbound links and interior links to your Home Page and the other important pages on your site. Create LOTS of pages and link them all to a Site Map page and list all your pages on the Site Map Page with keyword rich text descriptions.


We have hired an online sales and marketing company (wheelmedia.com) to do our search engine optimization.

I looked over wheelmedia's proposal and it seems to cover extensively how they will research our customers and optimize our keyword/meta tags for them.


This doesn't sound good ... See our advice for lines ... 1.) and 8.) above.


Submit us to the major search engines


This doesn't sound good ... See our advice for line ... 9.) above.


There was little mention in the proposal about link promotion. Which I understand is important.


This doesn't sound good ... See our advice for lines ... 5.) and 10.) above.


The things they proposed to do seem to be something well within my teams ability to do ourselves.


We certainly agree with that.


From what he was telling me we had too many Meta tags and after I got to see the list I agree.


Meta Tags are useless for optimization (except for Inktomi)


At this point it seems we are going to continue using wheelmedia and I need to know what signs to watch for when dealing with them.


As always, buyer beware. We hope we've given you some food for thought with all we have mentioned. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask us.


I’m very nervous about their pay per click campaign. They asked us to budget about $100 a month for it, which seems reasonable. After reading this forum I’m a lot more wary. Any advice on how to keep from getting burned?


See our advice for line ... 3.) above (and below).


3.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on ... certain SEO or marketing techniques that you are not comfortable with.

[Mel]

From Sahron and Roys lst post:

2.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on submitting to the major search engines.

I simply cannot agree with this at all.

Any SEO firm that wants decent traffic for its clients HAS to have good rankings on the major search engines. If you do not optimize your pages for the search engines you may not get decent rankings and if you do not submit the pages you optimize (either manually or through PFI) you run the risk of waiting a very long time to see results and/or getting the pages you wnt indexed.

Unless of course you meant to say Embrace those firms that focus on the major engines.......

The Description Meta Tag is still very important to most search engines who rank the description contents nearly as high as the page title and in addition many search engines (Google Excepted) use the Description as their description so the contents of this tag are very important with regard to what your customers will see in the search results and whether or not they will click through to your site or not.

I would run from any SEO who does not take the above into cosideration,

[ihelpyou]

LOL. Great avatar Mel! A Farhan special?

[Mel]

No Doug I can't blame Farhan for that, I cobbled it up myself. Too bad the resolution is so small that you can't read the Spam label pasted on the briefcase.

[ihelpyou]

That's pretty damn good! Yes, cannot read 'spam' on there so you should try to fix it. A real good one!

[excell]

I would ditch trying to optimise the site you said, it is just a backdoor domain to two (or more) other sites. Concentrate on them or else put some content on that backdoor and make it work for you.

[MakeMeTop]

I think Sharon & Roy were referring to people who focus on 'submitting' to major search engine - rather than optimization for and inclusion in the major search engines. Inclusion can be done very effectively (but more slowly) through decent links and speedily through paid inclusion - but (of course) neither method is effective unless on-site optimization has taken palce. At least I assume that is what they meant :)

[excell]

hehhe.. it's all too diffucult to read at times (at least for me) :hi:

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by Mel

quote:
----------------------------------------------------------------
2.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on submitting to the major search engines.
----------------------------------------------------------------

I simply cannot agree with this at all.

Any SEO firm that wants decent traffic for its clients HAS to have good rankings on the major search engines. If you do not optimize your pages for the search engines you may not get decent rankings and if you do not submit the pages you optimize (either manually or through PFI) you run the risk of waiting a very long time to see results and/or getting the pages you wnt indexed.

Unless of course you meant to say Embrace those firms that focus on the major engines


Hi Mel,

No that is not what we meant at all.

Actually Barry summed it up when he said ...

Originally posted by MakeMeTop
I think Sharon & Roy were referring to people who focus on 'submitting' to major search engine - rather than optimization for ...


To expound on our statement ...

2.) Stay away from any SEO or SEO Firm that focuses on submitting to the major search engines.

We mean to stay away from those that focus on submitting ...

For example ... An SEO or SEO Firm (or better said, a "SO-CALLED" SEO or SEO Firm or SEM Firm) may advertise like this ...


(This is word for word what this company advertises ...)


-----------------------------
WE DELIVER TARGETED UNIQUE SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEB SITE

BOTTOM LINE IF YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS CAN'T find YOUR WEB SITE in the first 10 to 20 matches ON A SEARCH ENGINE, YOU JUST LOST MONEY!

IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

Improving search engine TRAFFIC means:

MORE HITS

MORE BUSINESS

MORE SUCCESS

The most important advertising dollar spent should be for targeted search engine TRAFFIC!

1. Approximately 95% of all Internet users start with a search engine query.

2. Anyone who comes to your site from a major search engine is 100 times more likely to become a customer because they were specifically looking for your product, goods or services.

3. Search engine traffic gives you substantially more for your advertising dollar than banners or anything else. Moreover, having a Banner Ad on a web site doesn't mean your Ad was seen or even targeted to your market.

Can't Get Your Companies Web Site Indexed by the Search Engines?

Unfortunately, this is all too common of a Problem. You're not the only one frustrated about the length of time it takes to be listed, or all the pitfalls involved. It takes anywhere from 2 days to as much as 3 months to be listed on all the search engines.

WHEN DO YOU SUBMIT?

Engines at any time delay their indexing for maintenance and many other reasons.

We Know exactly how each search engine works, and we know when to submit and what to submit. Search engines are changing daily and we study them each day. Your competitors ARE @ the mercy of OUR Marketing Departments.

Over 6 Years in the search engine wars and we have Masters words like: MP3 - BOOKS - WEB SITE HOSTING - MARKETING -- FREE WEB SITES - CASINO - - CASINO REVIEWS -BALLS - LOGOS - ART - ATTORNEY'S - NEW CAR PARTS -OLD CAR PART - - NETWORK MARKETING - WATER FILTERS -- SCALES - AND THE LIST GOES ON - -

If you've submitted your site and come to find no listing, what do you do now?

Contact:

[Name Removed]

You need US in your corner, WE will take CONTROL of the submission cycle of your domain.

The cost is $348 US Dollars for 12 months of service.

This Price is good for this month only and with this order we give you a free Consultation after 100 days to improve your listings (a $375.00 value). We only offer this to our clients when they order the 12 month search engine submission service. The free Consultation is to make the necessary changes to improve your listing and move you to the top of each Search Engine.

When you start our service we do not make any changes to your web site and after 100 days we only make suggestions that WILL improve your search engine placement.

DON'T delay act NOW, Today!!!

People are looking for your company right now!!!

WE WILL PUT YOUR WEB SITE IN FRONT OF THEM!!

More Search Engines = More Traffic!

We increase your site's exposure and get your domain more traffic!

WE submit your domain to 69 (sixty-nine) of the top search engines!

It's simple - WE get you indexed on more search engines and Drive more traffic to your domain!

We compiled a list of the major international and domestic search engines!

This is your opportunity to increase your domain's traffic, Quickly!

WE update (submit) your domain weekly or as needed plus, WE provide you with a monthly report (by request only!)

Here's the complete list:

AltaVista
HotBot
InfoSeek/Go Network (Web Results)
InfoSeek/Go Network (Proven Picks)
AOL Search
Direct Hit
Excite
Fast/All The Web
Google
Goto.com
IWon
Lycos
MSN
NBCi (Formerly Snap)
Netscape
Open Directory
WebCrawler
Yahoo
... Plus
Acoon (Germany)
Aeiwi (USA)
AltaVista (France)
AltaVista (Germany)
AltaVista (Itlay)
AltaVista (Switzerland)
Blitz (Germany)
Excite (Australia)
Excite (France)
Excite (Italy)
Excite (UK)
FindOnce (UK)
Free (France)
FrequentFinders (USA)
GoEureka (Australia)
Indibil (Spain)
InfoMak (USA)
Infoseek (Germany)
InfoTiger (USA)
Lokace (France)
Lycos (Chile)
Lycos (Columbia)
Lycos (France)
Lycos (German)
Lycos (Italian)
Lycos (Japan)
Lycos (Peru)
Lycos (Spain)
Lycos (Sweden)
Lycos (UK)
MaxiSearch (Germany)
Origo (Norway)
QuestFinder (USA)
SearchEngine (UK)
Sharelook (Italy)
ShinySeek (Italy)
Speedfind (Germany)
SplatSearch (USA)
Spray (France)
SunSteam (Norway)
SuperSnooper (USA)
Superva (Italian)
Sympatico (Canadian)
UK Max (UK)
Unearth (New Zealand)
Voila (France)
Voila (Spain)
Walhello (USA)
WebSearch (Australia)
WebWombat (Australia)
Yagua (Paraguay)
-----------------------------

[Marcia]

>Embrace any SEO or SEO Firm that knows that getting high rankings is ALL about links and proper linking.

Except for the SEO firm that got themselves a lovely PR0 wth that technique, which is how they "optimize" and couldn't do better than high 60's for simple keywords for a wonderful client who was lucky enough to get away before also getting a penalty.

That is 100% hogwash, that "links are ALL."

[ihelpyou]

Good point Marcia.

Amazing how many sites out there with PR0 and you can tell why they got it.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by Marcia
Except for the SEO firm that got themselves a lovely PR0 wth that technique, which is how they "optimize" and couldn't do better than high 60's for simple keywords for a wonderful client who was lucky enough to get away before also getting a penalty.

That is 100% hogwash, that "links are ALL." To be fair to S&R, I don't think they were advocating any "technique" that could lead to a penalty. They were simply advocating good Web positioning, which is part of the big picture.

I agree totally that it's not the whole picture.

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by Marcia

>Embrace any SEO or SEO Firm that knows that getting high rankings is ALL about links and proper linking.

Except for the SEO firm that got themselves a lovely PR0 wth that technique, which is how they "optimize" and couldn't do better than high 60's for simple keywords for a wonderful client who was lucky enough to get away before also getting a penalty.

That is 100% hogwash, that "links are ALL."


Hi Marcia,

We're confused by your comments.

Since it "looks" like you are making a reference to our statement, we have no idea what you mean here.

What are you actually saying?

Do you agree or disagree with our statement and why?

Also, do you fully understand our statement?

Thanks.