google ups and downs

Having enjoyed good success in the SERPS - i discovered today that my google ranking has dropped suddenly on my index page. It seems to have occurred at the same time as there being hosting problems with surftown. I have fired off an email asking what has happened, but this is very frustrating as my hard work has been undone... i guess i will have to wait before my domain is trusted again. Maybe i should get back on with link building again after having taken a bit of a break...

Joomla

I've just finished watching a video over at itidiots.com giving a down to earth overview of joomla and its amazing features. definitely something to check out if you are interested in content management systems.

I now have to begin the hunt for an awesome looking template - i guess im looking for one that i can customise myself so it really ends up looking how i want it to. The thing is i think i will still need to create my individual sites to showcase the various things i do can and design, but for content systems Joomla is a winner.

Dmoz signs of life

google analytics in all its glory picked up someone from editors.dmoz accessing my site, which is great, i was expecting it to be another couple of months or so.

Traffic and bookings are pouring in which is really encouraging, if i had less commitments and a better pay offer, doing this full time could lead to incredible results im sure in terms of business turnover. My aim is to be in the top 3 for generic hadrian's wall searches and top on alot of other ones, and i want an average of 50 visitors a day, but thats pretty ambitious, i would be happy with 30 which is just under double what i'm getting at the moment.

So many things to do so little time. I need to consider starting a proper web page with a company name and a blog. I think i should probably do it in joomla, to take advantage of its CMS. I need to be thinking of a company name!

Im in the process of putting together a proposal for an architects firm, for their website and marketing package. I guess i did my first bit of consultancy work yesterday and i really enjoyed it, was a real buzz being an 'expert' and advising a highly successful business on their entire marketing plan!

patience

OK so i thought things would continue to move as quickly as they had the last few weeks in terms of rankings, but they've slowed down - by that i mean no moving or shaking in the last 3 days! I guess ive been so used to seeing my site rocket up the rankings that its frustrating to see it just sit now. I've added some useful links tho this week, so they should bump me up soon i hope - my new focus is going to be 'bed and breakfast hadrian's wall', ie a different word order as im not ranking so highly for that now.

My best of the web listing came through, but i still want dmoz to hurry up and list me, im sure its going to have a massive impact on my rankings, patience patience patience... urgh :(

Alt Tags

OK so alot of information you find on the web to do with SEO is antiquated which makes for annoying learning - why don't people put dates on their work? anyway i found this site on using ALT tags, i am unsure as to the value of changing them, but it certainly wont be a negative effect.

I started looking at this because i used this site keyworddensity.com and its helped explain a few things to me, mainly why i've dropped on the tantallon house search...

at it again

I'm taking a little break from the directory project today to have another crack at getting Tantallon House up the listings. After a lot of shuffling around the sight seems to have settled on the first page, 2nd from bottom which is great, but its still no top 3!!! i'm sure the difference in the number of clicks would be colossal. I have a few more directories to add the site too, as well as a few pending, so hopefully they should lead to a bump.

Worryingly, i overlooked the keyword tantallon house - its seems the site has lost its top 7 our of 10 spots to the tantallon bed and breakfast based in scotland which is unfortunate. i think i need to modify the site a bit as i have been so busy concentrating on getting hadrian's wall as the keyword i just presumed the keyword would be 'mine'.

So a slight change of direction is needed for the sight, also thinking ahead, i need to find out how many people use 'b&b' when searching, as im nowhere near the front page, something to work on i guess!

So since the 17th of August i've had 234 absolute unique visitors which i think is pretty impressive for a first time effort. Quite how many of them have turned into actual bookings is hard to tell to be honest, but there have been 6/7 enquiries via email which is encouraging.

I have launched another site northumberland bed and breakfast to try to improve results for those who search for northumberland as tantallon houseis on the border of Cumbria and Northumberland.

I now have similar results for Hadrian's Wall Bed and Breakfast in google, with and without the apostraphe which is great as it was beginning to bug me!

google success

so despite a slight setback in that my yahoo directory listing put my site under an incorrect category and a few other links from sites being a little slow to come through, my emarketing is still going pretty much to plan. Ive spent over the planned budget, but this year is an experiment, so i can really see where traffic comes from, then once i know, i can start cutting back on listings.

I've made page one of google which is awesome, its been really quick, maybe 2 weeks at most to do this, so pretty cool really. I guess the site will shoot up even further as there are still many more links to come and the longer it exists, apparently the more google 'trusts' the site.

Once that milestone is accomplished i think i will have to have a serious look at what people are searching for, then optimise the site accordingly, for example, we are nowhere to be seen for b&b searches. I guess link to the site like this hadrian's wall b&b would do alot to help! but we'll see... time is taking its toll and i have other projects to work on...

switching over site

Switching over from my old domain tantallonhouse.co.uk to the new one hadrians-wall-bed-and-breakfast.co.uk has proved successful so far. There werent too many problems in changing a few listings and setting up a forwarding system from one domain to the other.

The bad side is that although google indexed my site a couple of days back, the changes still haven't shown up the SERPS yet, so there is still a link to my location page, instead of the new Hadrian's Wall optimised page. I have included a new section on that page with more specific info and of course lots of relevant keywords. Although i know in reality most people don't read half of what i put on there!

There will be more detailed sections to follow on local attractions and extra bits for walkers, cyclists and bikers. And once they are done, i will begin listing our site on relevant portals etc.

website feedback

Ok so i was skeptical about blogging to begin with, as i think said before it was more an experiment than anything else - but ive seen some great benefits from it already...

1. its a record of whats happening for myself if no-one else on my website if nothing else. With so many little changes being constantly made, most of them 4am inspirations - its hard to keep track of what I am actually doing. This info could be very useful for future sites i make, its one big learning curve i guess.

2. Increased traffic. With the ability to write specific anchor text for links, its very easy to be specific for users and search engines exactly what is on your site, when you register for directories 99% of the time all you receive is a basic link or 'click here' which adds no value to your 'vote'.

3. User feedback - I started writing this mainly through reading this blog by Chris Tomkins. I added a couple of simple comments stating that i was interested in what the guys were discussing about - what people look for in a bed and breakfast - and have ended up with a review of my website with very useful information that is completely objective, something that is hard to come by when people you show initially tend to be friends and family.

google analytics

So google's free analytics software is possibly on of the most useful sites around. Firstly its free which is always a bonus, but its just so useful. It enables me to track exactly who is coming to the website, how they are reaching it, how long they spend on each page.

Also importantly analytics includes the 'bounce rate' which is how many people leave the site straight away after seeing the landing page. Image is still everything, Good content is great, especially for the search engines, however we all know that people browse sites in moments - and if the site doesnt measure up, people simply click back and continue searching. Im hoping the investment that was made in good quality photos will pay off, they load fairly quickly which is also very imporant...

Anyway i guess time will tell how successful the site gets, but its only due to analytics that i will really have any idea how my site is actually doing!

search engine result

to my surprise my new site has shown up in google, sadly only for a very specific search, and even then on page 2, however its a start, especially as im still waiting for various big hitting sites to change our website details. Once the spiders get through their sties again i think we will be in business!

Im having issues with the the open directory, arguably one of the most important sites to be listed on, as their quality control is so tight. The thing is i listed my old site tantallonhouse.co.uk a month back with them, and have now changed domains, but i don't want to submit my new site, as their terms clearly state that mirrors should not be submitted, i do not want to get penalized, especially from such an important site... I guess i have to find a way to resolve this. With such a long wait though to get listed, this could prove annoying!

Waiting for google

Ok, so i now have to be patient as i sit back and wait for google to find my new site, as i have switched over domains in the hope of having more precise anchor texts for the various links that i will have put on the existing business and accommodation directories. 

some of the important listings are hadrians-wall.org as well as the national trail site, we have a listing on the latter - here which has already provided a few referrals to our site. These sites are the top two hits in the SERPS for the search 'hadrians' wall' on google, so it is very important we are given a 'vote' by these sites...

Blogging about Hadrian's Wall Bed and Breakfast

OK so this is my fist crack at starting a blog. Why do it? Curiosity i guess, but it a useful way of tracking my progress in my little experiment that is e-marketing and SEO for a bed and breakfast business based near Hadrian's Wall on the border of Cumbria and Northumberland.

After overhauling the site again today, I have now setup a forwarding address from tantallonhouse.co.uk to the new better optimized site www.hadrians-wall-bed-and-breakfast.co.uk.