Need Advice

[mrn]

Hello,

I built a site around 12 months ago (

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk

) I've been using IBP to analyze keywords of my competitors, and Arelis to build links, but never seem to rank higher than 50 for any of my keywords. I also used positiontech to submit to google.

Where I'm I going wrong & would I be better getting an SEO to sort this out?

Mike

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

 

[Foamcow]

Well for one. You have few backlinks into your site. Nearly all those that show up in Google are your own pages.
That's not going to help you as much as quality links into your site for other authorative sites.

Try getting your site listed in some good directories and on other industry sites.

Perhaps try getting some links in from Holiday company sites or property rental sites too.

I googled for "airport parking heathrow" and checked the backlinks of the top ranked site. They have lots of links coming in from other places. That is helping them get hat rank.

Put a descriptive alt tag on your header logo and make it an absolute link back to your homepage too. I believe that helps a little bit.

You could also tidy your code up a little.
I see lots of empty <font> tags and nested tables which just bloat the text that a crawler reads.

Javascript links will not get followed by a crawler either.

There isn't actually much content on your pages either. Not sure what could go on the airport pages but jsut having a form isn't adding much too them.
I am sure the homepage text could be looked at too. Perhaps mention some of the bigger airports in the body text?

I can see you've tried some "dodgy" SEO tricks too.
Not sure if putting <b> tags inside <h2> tags is going to help. Since its recognised duping technique it may even penalise you.

Hope that helps a little. It's nice to go to a site like that that doesn't have flashing borders and stuff

http://www.foamcow.com

"I'm making time

 

[mrn]

Thanks for the feedback Foamcow.

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

 

[ChrisHunt]

Getting people to link to you can be important in raising your SEO profile. Incoming links will also direct traffic to your site in themselves.

The trouble is that your site looks a little slapdash, and won't inspire confidence in potential linkers. It may not do much for potential customers either. For example...
[ul]
[li]Some of your text is in Times New Roman, some is in Arial. The font actually changes partway through the text on your front page. Pick one and stick to it.
[/li]
[li]You're inconsistent about how you present links - sometimes they're underlined, sometimes not, sometimes they're coloured, sometimes not. Things that look like they should be links sometimes aren't (e.g. the "Travel Insurance | Parking | Hotels..." line near the bottom of the front page)
[/li]
[li]There's no link back to the home page once you've gone into the site.
[/li]
[li]Your "Questions and Answers" page doesn't look like the rest of the site, and doesn't actually contain any questions. The FAQ format is a really good way to get information across, but if you take the questions out it just looks like a disorganised stream of consciousness.
[/li]
[li]On the subject of streams of consciousness, the paragraphs on your front page appear to be in some random order. Some bits are just meaningless, e.g. this sentence: "On-airport in the long term car park ." Huh? Get a person to proof-read your copy rather than obsessing about how many keywords you can get into it.
[/li]
[li]You've got a distinctly unreassuring message about security right up on page one (my emphasis): "All the Airport parking facilities featured on our site meet a strict standard which means that most of our car parks will have been accredited by the Association of Chief Police Officers." So what is it? Do all of them meet the standard or just most? Have they been accredited or are they going to be? If you can't be more reassuring than this about security, don't say anything!
[/li]
[li]When I go to an airport parking page, the date defaults to 1st January 2003. Do you offer time travel amongst your services? Make it default to something sensible - today's date, tomorrow's, whatever makes sense.
[/li]
[/ul]
Learn how to use CSS - it makes it much easier to give your site a consistent look & feel than fiddling around with <font> tags.

Like Foamcow says, it's nice to see a site that's reserved and professional-looking. It's just not quite professional looking enough...

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[mrn]

Thanks for the pointers

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

 

[ChrisHirst]

hey look at that nothing much to add

apart from;
You seriously need a copywriter and some serious SEO.
Well you will if you hope to get anywhere among the other ten thousand affiliate/agent sites for airport parking (almost 5 million results) or UK airport parking (2 million) so don't expect quick results from that level of competition. But a quick look at the real search competition there are hundreds of phrases to be targeted (properly) that will bring in much better qualified traffic and therefore buyers than those two.
A copywriter is going to be a big plus to put the conversion rates up because I assume you won't be on a huge commission for each sale.

No disrespect btw, but looking at some of the first page sites in the SERPs it looks pretty much full of spammers, chancers and amateurs.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[mrn]

One of the "amateurs" in the top 10 for "Airport parking UK" are earning six figures just by collecting the commissions.


Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

 

[ChrisHirst]

I don't doubt it, It was simply intended to point out that doing it well is likely to get even better returns.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.