Opinions please

[fishergirl]

I found your forum this week and it is the best one I've came across so far. Members seem to very helpful and informative.
And I'm a rookie so I need all the help I can get.

My site www.wvbassguides.com is pretty much finished with the exception of the fishing reports page which will be updated daily. It has been submitted and is coming up ok, not great on some search engines, any help there would be greatly appreciated. I just can't seem to catch up to my competitors. I feel my 3 main keywords are fishing, WV and New River It is my first site so I'm proud of it but I'm open to criticism. Everyone tells me pictures are not that important but with my business smiling faces sell!!!



Is this site completed or under construction?
Complete

Who is your target audience?
Fishermen/women

How important is it for your site to rank well?
Very

How important is usability?
Very

What is the purpose of the site? (inform, sell, online community, support B&M business, contact info only, etc)
Sell fishing trips

Do you want your code reviewed for errors or improvements?
Please

Do you want design suggestions?Any help is appreciated.
YES

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums fishergirl! :hi:

For your first site.... Nice Job! :)

I would suggest getting rid of all the caps. On the internet, all caps look like you are shouting.

You have lots of good content so it simply needs to be optimized. I don't have much time as I'm leaving for the weekend but others can give you more advice.

[Daminc]

Hi Fishergirl, welcome to the forum :hi:

Unfortunately, I'm not a fish person although a few of my mates subject themselves to the insane torturous ritual of sitting down in sub-zero conditions armed only with maggots and a 6 pack :confused:

I like the site though, it's clean and has recently been updated. One of the things I would suggest though is to create a 'Book Session' page and have the highlighted titles on the trips.htm page link to it. Have all the details about how to book with you in easy one, two, three stages. The easier you make it the more conversions you'll get.

I don't know what you mean by 'per boat'. Do people bring their own boats to that area?

Also, having all your text in bold and in capitals isn't neccessary IMHO. If you have the text in normal lower case this will give you a better opportunity to highlight key points within your text using the h1 tag and help the reader to understand what is written.

I have no idea what this does though:
<v:formulas>
<v:f eqn="sum #0 0 10800"/>
<v:f eqn="prod #0 2 1"/>
<v:f eqn="sum 21600 0 @1"/>
<v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @2"/>
<v:f eqn="sum 21600 0 @3"/>
<v:f eqn="if @0 @3 0"/>
<v:f eqn="if @0 21600 @1"/>
<v:f eqn="if @0 0 @2"/>
<v:f eqn="if @0 @4 21600"/>
<v:f eqn="mid @5 @6"/>
<v:f eqn="mid @8 @5"/>
<v:f eqn="mid @7 @8"/>
<v:f eqn="mid @6 @7"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @6 0 @5"/>
</v:formulas>

I wish you all good luck and success

[Blue]

Welcome to the forums fishergirl! :hi:

As Doug said, you need to optimize the content you have.

What I would do is:

1.) Understand that keyphrases are what most people use to search, as opposed to keywords. So, you should be optimizing for a set of two to three (max) keyphrases per page, with each page optimized for a different set of keyphrases.

2.) Run WordTracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) to see if the keyphrases you are thinking of using are actually being searched on, as well as to ferret out keyphrases you haven't thought of.

3.) Format your HTML code so that it is search engine friendly. This means optimizing your TITLE and META (description and keyword) tags and your body content (see below). It also means placing your body content (your text on the page) as close to the top of the HTML code as possible. If you're using them (now or in the future) place any scripts or CSS in external files.

Note: It looks like you used MS Office as your HTML editor. I would consider re-coding your site using a dedicated HTML editor, as MS Office doesn't spit out the "cleanest" code (right tool for the right job). Try this excellent free HTML editor: http://www.evrsoft.com/ (http://www.evrsoft.com)

4.) Your TITLE tag: If you absolutely need it there, place your company name at the end. You should have, for each different page, your sets of keyphrases, in order of importance, here. For the home page, something like - Guided fishing trips New River West Virginia fishing - (this is only an example!!! do the research first).

5.) Your META description tag: Write a short, catchy description here, utilizing your keyphrases in order of importance. Research how directories would like to see this description (so they'll use it verbatim) and remember that some search engines use this tag in the SERP's so make it "sell" so that people searching click on your site rather than your competitors.

6.) Your META keyword tag: Repeat your keyphrases in the keyword tag, again in order of importance, and don't keyword stuff.

7.) Your (all important) body content: Utilize headers, employing <h1, h2, etc.> tags in the proper manner containing the keyphrases for that page. Also intersperse your keyphrases throughout the copy, and use keyphrase links.

A good format is: Header 1 - paragraph, header 2 - paragraph, etc.

Use bulleted text for highlights.

****

Design:

This (along with the all important copy) is where you'll "catch" (bad pun intended :rolleyes: ) and convert you're visitors.

You're layout is pretty simple right now, which is a good thing.

First thing I would consider is designing a layout that instills familiarity for your visitors. In other words, you need to have the navigation elements remain in the exact same place on all your pages, and look the same as well (same font, color, style and size). And don't change the order or leave any out on different pages. That causes confusion.

The same goes for your page header, footer, and body position.

Keep all pages to the same width, either fixed or autostretch.

As mentioned above, lose the all caps. Also, use a single font type throughout, only changing the style, weight or color, for emphasis.

I suggest jumping in to CSS as this can reduce code bloat and allows for easy editing/updating.

Here's a few suggestions for your layout:

Reduce the size of the contact info in the header so that the "Twin Rivers Outfitters" graphic and the contact info stays the same height as the logo (in the upper left).

Left align the links in the navbar on the left (also, repeat (horizontally) the left navbar links, in a smaller font, at the bottom of all pages so visitors don't have to scroll back up).

Possibly put a box (maybe a one pixel border, and use a color that compliments the site) around the body content, in order to separate it from the header/navbar.

****

You're off to a great start, and you've done a great job compared to a lot of "first" sites I've seen (including mine :D )!!!

Probably more than I wanted to write, LOL , but I hope it helps!

Good Luck and Happy Guiding!

[Alan Perkins]

The Rubber Flooring Company - Jugo de Noni, Morinda Tahitian Noni Juice - Algarve Villa Rental with 2 pools - Florida fishing guide service - suvata originals - IncrediMail letter styles - HGH Recom Spray Human Growth Hormone
What are those links at the bottom of your page?

[fishergirl]

Thanks to all of you for the comments and suggestions. I'm working on the site now.

The links are some link exchange, pop-ups I found, that are supposed to help your ranking. What can I say? I'm a sucker, I guess. Do I need to take that off?

The <v:formulas> were related to the word art I had used in the title. Which I go rid of.

I'm using front page as my editor, I just installed office and I don't know why that came up as my editor.

Please remember you all are dealing with a dumb hillbilly here.
What are scrips and CSS in external files?

I have two competitors that are kicking my tail. www.small-mouth.com and www.mountainstateanglers.com I can't figure out why they are so hot. Mnt. State is really kicking on all the engines.

[Blue]

What are scripts and CSS in external files? Scripts, in this instance, would be program instructions embedded within your HTML code. They tell the browser to perform an action, for instance - a rollover (when a button graphic changes color or looks like it's depressed). They can perform a variety actions.

You see them, sometimes between the <head></head> tags or between the <body></body> tags, and they are usually contained within <script></script> tags.

See: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/scripts.html

CSS = Cascading Style Sheets, and is a programming language that can allow you to separate style and layout from content.

See: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

Placing these in external files simply means not having the actual script or CSS in your HTML document, but rather having them in their own separate files and "calling" them from your HTML document with a short peice of code so that they can perform their intended duty.

The links are some link exchange, pop-ups I found, that are supposed to help your ranking. What can I say? I'm a sucker, I guess. Do I need to take that off? If these are links to "bad neighborhoods" such as link farms, then yes, take them off. If they are of use to your site's visitors, keep them.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by fishergirl
The links are some link exchange, pop-ups I found, that are supposed to help your ranking. What can I say? I'm a sucker, I guess. Do I need to take that off? I would. :)

[amica_webmaster]

I notice that you've said that your target market is fihermen/women. Women are not very visible on the site. The only sign I saw of women is on the gallery page, and then one of the most prominent images was labelled "Mrs. Fultz." If I were in the market for a fishing trip, I might get over the presentation of fishing as something that primarily involves men, but a few more images of women would be nice. And I definately would want to see names of women listed in the same way as names of men.

[esavvy]

Much luck to you! I can offer a few opinions.

The slow opening (load of the initial page) is annoying. I don't know why I find this annoying .. but when I get to a site with this, I leave. I might be like other people -- I might not be?

Go through and have someone proof your copy. For example:

"If you have never floated the New River in West Virginia for smallmouth bass Twin Rivers is your answer to a fishing trip to remember." Should have a comma between bass and Twin

Make sure you have the navigation in the same place on every page.

That's all I can add that others have not outlined.

Great job!