Any SEO pointers for my site?

WeddingWebmast

If anybody has a couple of minutes to give me a few SEO pointers for my site, I'd really appreciate it. It's a no brainer for me to state that the higher my website ranks, the better! No need to go easy on me, I'm very thick skinned!! www.mrs2be.ie

HandWS LTD

You do realise that your site is ranked well? But hey.....you want top spot. Is it just me or am i thinking that you are a web designer looking for helpful hints to get top spot.

But hey, we'll help....thats why we're here. A simple tip is use the words "Irish wedding supplier directory" and "Wedding Forums" inside your home page content. and wrap them around <h2>. Also build links.

WeddingWebmast

Thanks for replying. Yes I agree that I'm "reasonably well" ranked as it is but like anyone else, I'm still trying for the coveted top 3 position in Google for all my key phrases. I think I have most of the basics covered but as you say, links are very important. I am currently on page 2 or 3 for "wedding" or "weddings" and I'm keen to improve on this. When I add the word "Ireland" into these phrases, I usually get position 5 to 7 on page 1 which I'm very happy about.

I suppose I was just looking at my side code for too long and wanted a fresh pair of eyes! Thanks for taking the time to take a look.

HandWS LTD

Ok.....those pages are on the second page of google. Link building with the keywords as weddings or wedding as your title on other sites will help.

Also, do you realise that your website contains errors and failed accessibility? You can be ranked higher if they are solved. This is also whats stopping you get ranked high with BING. BING wants top quality code and you got a score of 5.5. If this is 10 then you'll be ranking better.

tomED

The reality is that your site will take some time before it gets the top position. You may fluctuate up and down over the next year or so, but the sites with top positions at the moment have been there for a very long time and it's unlikely you will surpass them for a long time.

Keep building links and providing quality content and don't give up! The other key sites lack major content - but their authority will take a while to be beaten.

RedCardinal

HandWS LTD wrote: »

Also, do you realise that your website contains errors and failed accessibility? You can be ranked higher if they are solved.

Not sure that everybody would agree with that statement. Generally search engines dont have problems with crap code, and other than cases of completely malformed HTML I'm yet to see websites outranking due to perfect code

HandWS LTD wrote: »

This is also whats stopping you get ranked high with BING. BING wants top quality code and you got a score of 5.5. If this is 10 then you'll be ranking better.

Out of curiosity, where are you deriving this score? Again, I'm not so sure that even Bing will increase your rankings because your code is perfect (they may state this, but FUD comes to mind).

HandWS LTD

RedCardinal wrote: »

Not sure that everybody would agree with that statement. Generally search engines dont have problems with crap code, and other than cases of completely malformed HTML I'm yet to see websites outranking due to perfect code

Out of curiosity, where are you deriving this score? Again, I'm not so sure that even Bing will increase your rankings because your code is perfect (they may state this, but FUD comes to mind).

Hi....your right...... search engines like google will take any code and index anybody. But Bing, NO (if you have a good amt of backlinks then you will get in, like your website).

For any sites with hardly any backlinks, if you compare 2 very similar sites one valid and one not valid. The error free one's will come ahead. It has always been recommended to follow the w3c guidelines.

The score comes from our software designed to test the full source code from any particular page and test it for errors and in compliance with w3c. That is not all it does. It also collects your seo data, download speed etc.

Bing may state it as you said about the great code. Now the question is should you follow it or not? A large percentage of those people will follow it.

WeddingWebmast

@HandWS: thanks for the tips, yes I have a bit of work to do for full validation. :eek:

@tomED: thanks, all I need is patience and good quality content and decent backlinks

@redCardinal and HandWS: I'm not too bothered by Bing just yet. Google is still the man and will be for some time I'd imagine. http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-200908-200910

krmwebdesigner

You have few 'alt' tags and no 'title' tags on your pages. These are very important tags to have on your site.

link8r

HandWS LTD wrote: »

Hi....your right...... search engines like google will take any code and index anybody. But Bing, NO (if you have a good amt of backlinks then you will get in, like your website).

I really have to agree with RedC (who really is a top SEO). I'm really surprised at this information. Do you have any reputable source for this? I've just gone through a number of articles on their Webmaster Blog, again, and I don't see anything to corroborate this. I did see plenty of good information about not building really bad HTML or building a site that cannot be accessed properly. I also see them re-iterating the importance of backlinks.

HandWS LTD wrote: »

For any sites with hardly any backlinks, if you compare 2 very similar sites one valid and one not valid. The error free one's will come ahead.

A site with hardly any backlinks/no backlinks hasn't really been optimised. You can't self-vote yourself to rank (unless its a really small set of competitors) and that argument is old.

HandWS LTD wrote: »

It has always been recommended to follow the w3c guidelines.

I've heard this so many times and disagree with it always. Where are people getting this from? Is this something personal, that you take great pride in meeting 100% W3C and feel that people who dont have it are lazy? Its never affected me for SEO.

HandWS LTD wrote: »

The score comes from our software designed to test the full source code from any particular page and test it for errors and in compliance with w3c. That is not all it does. It also collects your seo data, download speed etc.

In my opinion, if its your own software, maybe you should highlight that - the score you gave sounded like it was some Bing/Bing affiliated scoring model. Anyone can build a scoring system. This system is built with your knowledge, based on your criteria. Its not by any means an accepted standard, as none of ours would be.

HandWS LTD wrote: »

Bing may state it as you said about the great code. Now the question is should you follow it or not? A large percentage of those people will follow it.

So what if they do follow it? If lots of people all believe that "The Force" in Star Wars is real - it won't actually make it real!

HandWS LTD

I have said this before. All SEO's are divided with different opinions.

link8r wrote: »

I really have to agree with RedC (who really is a top SEO). I'm really surprised at this information. Do you have any reputable source for this? I've just gone through a number of articles on their Webmaster Blog, again, and I don't see anything to corroborate this. I did see plenty of good information about not building really bad HTML or building a site that cannot be accessed properly. I also see them re-iterating the importance of backlinks.

I'm not saying he isn't a top SEO (Sorry if i can across as harsh on RedC). I'm pretty sure he is. In the Bing guidelines it has explained to "Use only well-formed, HTML code in your webpages", in other words they are saying error free with a link to w3c. Bing is a new search engine....that works differently to google or yahoo. I always followed w3c, even when i was in uni and they recommend it too.

I have been testing them for the last few months and have been getting strange results for different domains. They are still having problems but producing good results in terms of seo. Even the 2 main keywords are ranking me on the first page. I'm still testing them as they are very slow.

link8r wrote: »

A site with hardly any backlinks/no backlinks hasn't really been optimised. You can't self-vote yourself to rank (unless its a really small set of competitors) and that argument is old.

You can't self-vote yourself. But you can test with 2 domains of the exact same name but one little change at the end of each name. e.g "www.mydomain-a.ie" and "www.mydomain-b.ie" as an example and change a little code but works the same way (to get this to work you need to change the mydomain to a keyword thats unique and is not competitive). It is an old argument....but still stands.

link8r wrote: »

I've heard this so many times and disagree with it always. Where are people getting this from? Is this something personal, that you take great pride in meeting 100% W3C and feel that people who dont have it are lazy? Its never affected me for SEO.

As you have heard it so many times.....alot of people agree with it. Its not pride ..... and people who don't have it, don't follow it (not lazy). You do not have to have 100% error free code.....as hardly anybody has it. You will still get ranked. What i'm saying is .... that you CAN gain a more rank by having it error free.

link8r wrote: »

In my opinion, if its your own software, maybe you should highlight that - the score you gave sounded like it was some Bing/Bing affiliated scoring model. Anyone can build a scoring system. This system is built with your knowledge, based on your criteria. Its not by any means an accepted standard, as none of ours would be.

I did highlight it. I know its not an acceptable standard....but its works fine. Not something that everybody needs to know tho....i should keep that one quite.

link8r wrote: »

So what if they do follow it? If lots of people all believe that "The Force" in Star Wars is real - it won't actually make it real!

Ok.....why are W3C there in the first place? (Don't say they are somebody who came up with the idea and made alot of people believe it.) And why are search engines recommending them? If search engines DON'T follow W3C then they would never mention their name or a link to them. I don't think ANYBODY has ever or could answered that question. You don't believe .... i do. Fair enough...this is why SEO's are divided in certain areas.

link8r

ok, I still don't see Bing saying you have to have perfect HTML. There's a general guide, use well formed but this is not the same as being strict.

krmwebdesigner

link8r wrote: »

I've heard this so many times and disagree with it always. Where are people getting this from? Is this something personal, that you take great pride in meeting 100% W3C and feel that people who dont have it are lazy? Its never affected me for SEO.

I would agree with link8r here. Sites like Bebo and MySpace have horrible code in their pages yet they are still at the top of search engines. Nothing to do with their code, everything to do with how many pages they have indexed as well as their popularity.

RedCardinal

Yep, sorry:

"Use only well-formed, HTML code in your webpages", in other words they are saying error free with a link to w3c.

It means code that wont cause our parser to barf, e.g. not have a </head> before <body> and the like. Nothing to do with W3C or valid code, and all to do with the fact that Bing/MS parsers are less fault tolerant IMO.

HandWS LTD

krmwebdesigner wrote: »

I would agree with link8r here. Sites like Bebo and MySpace have horrible code in their pages yet they are still at the top of search engines. Nothing to do with their code, everything to do with how many pages they have indexed as well as their popularity.

Before you start going around checking more of the BIG sites i like to say, Social Media does not come into it. Bebo, MySpace, Facebook etc.....All the big ones have the money to advertise anywhere.....from there they get loads of traffic. Also people are adding their links to them or are being linked to them therefore they have tons of backlinks. This increases their popularity. Same goes for the search engines but search engines can do more than that.

RedCardinal wrote: »

Yep, sorry:

It means code that wont cause our parser to barf, e.g. not have a </head> before <body> and the like. Nothing to do with W3C or valid code, and all to do with the fact that Bing/MS parsers are less fault tolerant IMO.

I know what you mean. Every website always has </head> before </body> and so on, they are the easiest instructions. Hardly anybody has a fault with that...prob nobody. I have seen tons of websites on Bing that has a good amt of backlinks but cannot get in due to a bunch of reasons. A website does not have to be 100% valid....but it can add a little more weight to its ranking by being valid. I believe its the same case for google. This is what i'm trying to explain to the poster. I may start a new thread for seo's, designers, developers and see how many irish (or global) will be for or against this. It'll be 50/50.

link8r

HandWS LTD wrote: »

A website does not have to be 100% valid....but it can add a little more weight to its ranking by being valid. I believe its the same case for google. This is what i'm trying to explain to the poster. I may start a new thread for seo's, designers, developers and see how many irish (or global) will be for or against this. It'll be 50/50.

What is the relationship between good code and Authority? Why would it add "weight" by being more valid?

You're going to have to offer more than personal belief