6 ms·

Ask HN: I need SEO advice

2 points by andrewtbham 16y ago

I have done seo on a friend's web site. The main keywords we are targeting "Birmingham Movers." the main thing i did is add keywords to title, h1 tag, and throughout the text. anyway, his page is stuck at the top of the 4th page of results (on web and more importantly places)... any idea on how to get it up higher? the most obvious thing is quality backlinks, but I am at a loss for how to do that. any ideas? http://www.awisemoveinc.com/

andrewtbham 16y ago
clickable http://www.awisemoveinc.com http://www.awisemoveinc.com
- slater 16y ago
  Not that it will necessarily help much with SEO, but.. tables and spacer gifs? It's 2010, almost 2011? Furthermore, an @yahoo.com address is hardly professional. Just make info@... or movers@... an alias that sends on the e-mail to the yahoo address. Next, I'd split up the main items (Moving Service, Delivery, Storage) into individual pages, which opens more possibilities for some light SEO, eg. moving-services.html (or moving-services-birmingham.html, tho not sure if that's considered black-hat-ish) Also, consider the fact that there's more than one Birmingham, and the only two places you mention Alabama are in the title tag, and in meta tags. Oh and a third mention at the very end of the page, abbreviated, which doesn't really help too much.
  - andrewtbham 16y ago
    yeh, splitting the site up into a few pages is definitely a good idea. i looked at some top competitor's backlinks and they were all off their own site. for the record, i didn't do the design.
Travis 16y ago
I ran the site through an SEO analyzer, and found that you did pretty well on the basic stuff, like you mentioned above. See the full report at http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/report.html http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/report.html (enter your URL). The big areas to focus on are your copy, it seems. SEO Workers said that your keywords were {move,wise,birmingham,storage} and your 2 word keywords were {wise move,move offers,birmingham area}. Not bad, but I would try to rewrite content so that "birmingham move" is a top term, for example. The other thing is your internal site structure: you have none. Build a few other pages, so that you can link internally to yourself. This boosts page rank a bit, makes google like you a little more, but more importantly it gives you control over what anchor text you use in your links. Your internal links are totally under your control. I'd recommend adding a link that says something like "see a map of what areas of birmingham we move to". Adding more pages will help a bit. Other than that, work on link exchanges with other people who have page rank. Make sure you're listed in DMOZ. Basically, follow the checklists offered by many of the SEO sites, and work in the interim to get backlinks with your targeted keywords in them.
rationalbeaver 16y ago
Good reference on link building: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml It's a little older, but still valuable. In fact, someone submitted it here, rather recently.
PsyVisions 16y ago
Well, given the fact that people here enlightened you about on-page SEO let me give you the best advice about off-site SEO... Build some backlinks! ;)

2 points by andrewtbham 16y ago

andrewtbham 16y ago

clickable http://www.awisemoveinc.com http://www.awisemoveinc.com

slater 16y ago
Not that it will necessarily help much with SEO, but.. tables and spacer gifs? It's 2010, almost 2011? Furthermore, an @yahoo.com address is hardly professional. Just make info@... or movers@... an alias that sends on the e-mail to the yahoo address. Next, I'd split up the main items (Moving Service, Delivery, Storage) into individual pages, which opens more possibilities for some light SEO, eg. moving-services.html (or moving-services-birmingham.html, tho not sure if that's considered black-hat-ish) Also, consider the fact that there's more than one Birmingham, and the only two places you mention Alabama are in the title tag, and in meta tags. Oh and a third mention at the very end of the page, abbreviated, which doesn't really help too much.
- andrewtbham 16y ago
  yeh, splitting the site up into a few pages is definitely a good idea. i looked at some top competitor's backlinks and they were all off their own site. for the record, i didn't do the design.

Travis 16y ago

I ran the site through an SEO analyzer, and found that you did pretty well on the basic stuff, like you mentioned above. See the full report at http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/report.html http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/report.html (enter your URL). The big areas to focus on are your copy, it seems. SEO Workers said that your keywords were {move,wise,birmingham,storage} and your 2 word keywords were {wise move,move offers,birmingham area}. Not bad, but I would try to rewrite content so that "birmingham move" is a top term, for example. The other thing is your internal site structure: you have none. Build a few other pages, so that you can link internally to yourself. This boosts page rank a bit, makes google like you a little more, but more importantly it gives you control over what anchor text you use in your links. Your internal links are totally under your control. I'd recommend adding a link that says something like "see a map of what areas of birmingham we move to". Adding more pages will help a bit. Other than that, work on link exchanges with other people who have page rank. Make sure you're listed in DMOZ. Basically, follow the checklists offered by many of the SEO sites, and work in the interim to get backlinks with your targeted keywords in them.

rationalbeaver 16y ago

Good reference on link building: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml It's a little older, but still valuable. In fact, someone submitted it here, rather recently.

PsyVisions 16y ago

Well, given the fact that people here enlightened you about on-page SEO let me give you the best advice about off-site SEO... Build some backlinks! ;)